[Armin] and his crew at BerkelaarMRT were contacted by the Museum of Communication in The Hague to see if they could build a coffee machine that was operated only by voice. It sounded like an interesting challenge, so they took on the job and came up with a very awesome interactive coffee machine.

The interactive coffee machine is based on a coffee maker made by Animo with the ability to make cappuccino, espresso, or just a straight coffee. The electronics are based on a Motorola Xoom 10″ tablet with an Electric Sheep module from Sparkfun. This, along with a custom-made PCB with optocouplers, to allow the buttons on the coffee maker to be electronically activated.

When anyone walks up to the coffee machine, a Maxbotix sonar module detects their presence and a small animated coffee cup asks what they’d like to drink. The cute little cup then prepares the drink and waits for its next human.

There’s a video of the machine in action available below. it’s in Dutch, but anyone will be able to get the jist of how the animated coffee machine operates.

Continue reading “A Coffee Machine With An Attitude” →

A coffee machine that brews a fresh pot of joe,  automatically putting coffee in a filter, filling the coffee maker with water, brewing, dumping the grounds, and adding sugar and cream, all without any human interaction. Some may call it the fevered dream of a madman. Others may call it a vending machine. All we know is [Phil] is working on his own version of this robot par excellence.

This is only phase one of a robotic coffee machine build, but so far [Phil] has a single cup coffee maker that can fill itself with water and dump its grounds automatically.

The electronics are based on a PIC18F4550 that controls two mechanical relays that control the solenoids, one solid state relay that controls power to the coffee maker, and two stepper motor drivers that open the lid of the coffee maker and dump the filter into the wash bin.

It’s an awesome build and we look forward to the next stage of this awesome, truly homebrew build.

[TE] goes camping, and on his excursion he likes to take just the bare necessities. A sleeping bag, a tent, food, but above all else, coffee. Most camping coffee makers are a percolator design, which is widely regarded as the worst way to make coffee ever. With a little bit of ingenuity, he created an improvised drip coffee maker for camping, just the thing for a nice cup of brew in the wilderness.

If you were to make your own drip coffee maker, your first inclination might be to use a funnel, put in a filter, pour in some coffee, and load it up with hot water. This was [TE]’s first design, but he quickly realized the hole in the bottom of his makeshift funnel would clog very quickly. After investigating his electronic drip coffee maker, he discovered the bottom of the basket had a series of baffles that allowed the filter to drain over its entire bottom surface. But how to replicate this in a piece of DIY equipment?

The solution came from [TE]’s wife, who pulled out an apple slicer. This allowed the filter to sit a little proud in the basket, allowing for an efficient draining of coffee. Simple, effective, and nearly impossible to break; that’s very good camping equipment.

Continue reading “A Drip Coffee Maker For Camping” →