In the movie Wall-E, future humans live in floating chairs and have everything done for them. Today, we grumble if we have to go to physically find a light switch or a remote control. How far away can floating chairs with screens be? T2, the Tea Bot, gets us one step closer to that. Using a laser-cut frame, an ESP8266, and a servo motor, the T2 brews your tea for exactly the right amount of time.
We were kind of hoping the robot would at least dunk the tea bag in and out, but it does provide a web interface that lets you select the brew. Of course, the code is available, so you could make modifications — maybe turn on a hotplate underneath the cup.
While this isn’t particularly practical for most people, it is a nice short example of how to provide a web interface and do something with an ESP8266. Maybe you want to lock a desk drawer or put a marshmallow into a flame, for those tasks you could use very similar code.
Since a servo takes a pulse width and draws very little current, you could probably drive a bunch of them and parallel process a lot of teacups if you were serving a crowd. Naturally, this isn’t the first automated brewer we’ve seen. It isn’t even the only one with a servo.
The correct way to make tea is http://www.edholden.com/random/adams.php
Enjoyed the read, thanks for sharing!
– Loose leaf and never tea bags
– brew temperature is important too
https://theteaspot.com/loose-tea-vs-tea-bags.html
>The leaves used in most bags are actually the “dust and fannings” from broken tea leaves. This is a huge compromise in quality from full leaf tea. Finely broken tea leaves have lost most of their essential oils and aroma. When steeped, they release more tannins than whole leaf tea, resulting in bitter astringent brews.
So myself not been a tea drinker I’m getting the impression teabags are to tea what international roast instant “coffee” is to coffee
Teabags were a tea industry response to instant coffee.
Yep, that’s how I understood it. But that is so complicated and takes time….unless you do the Mindful Tea Making and Drinking. Then it can by quite enjoyable.
A bot for tea bag won’t magically elevate it to real tea.
The following URL ere is a serious attempt for tea making bot with 300kg industrial robot – not quite there but it includes pouring techniques. (video included)
https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/2162124/could-robots-save-hong-kong-milk-tea-extinction-kamchai
>Built by the Association of Coffee and Tea together with the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC), KamChAI – Cantonese for “golden boy” – is Hong Kong’s first AI tea maker, and has been programmed to brew a drink developed by cha chaan teng, or tea cafes.
Hmm this is old news
already did this months ago with a frame of carton and a web interface:
https://lucstechblog.blogspot.com/2018/08/teatimer.html
Luc
I only drink tea so that I can take a break, a leak and enrich company toilet seat with fresh urine.
Enter Teeodohr, the german rabbit tea butler: https://www.heise.de/select/make/2017/1/1488464563901699
I find the 3D “Printed” Circuit Board interesting!
Does it implement any of this RFC? https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324
Should be htTeap, rather than the coffee pot protocol.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned that Karl Marx never had Earl Grey. Because he thought all proper tea was theft.
My wife’s Irish grandmother would put the tea leaves in the kettle and leave it on the stove all day, reheating as needed.
Common in Canada’s Maritime provinces. Almost essential.
Always kept warm. Very tanic.
But if you have guests, like soup, you just add enough water to have enough for everyone.
Again, comment not placed as a reply to the comment’s reply I clicked on…
I wonder why hackaday.com goes through periods where that feature doesn’t work.
I recently had a comment get posted as a reply to someone when it wasn’t supposed to be. So rest assured; it all balances out.
This is how you make it if you’re an 8 year old at LearnOBots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gET7TujmtSo