My-Cha

Inspiration

The inspiration for the project idea, an automatic matcha maker, came from the recent trend/meme of "performative males." These are men who adopt a soft, curated persona typically to gain social validation or attract a romantic interest. I thought it would be fun to theme a project around this lighthearted theme, and ultimately focused in on a

What it does

A fully automated matcha maker that prepares fresh matcha at the press of a button, a parallel to coffee machines like Nespresso and Keurig. After loading the system with water and matcha powder, the device can produce a freshly made cup of matcha.

How we built it

This was a solo hardware + software project consisting of these core components:

Raspberry Pi
DSI display
servo + DC motors
peristaltic pump
motor driver
custom slide-crank mechanism with Lego The frame of the device was built using threaded metal rods, nuts, washers, and corrugated plastic sheets for a rigid design.

Challenges we ran into

Being a solo project presented a major challenge of balancing the workload of creating both a hardware and software system. Time-management was a major concern due to the lack of parallelized work. The lack of collaborators made problem-solving more time consuming.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully building both hardware and software systems despite the challenges of solo hacking
Creating a decently polished and fully realized final product

What we learned

How to use guizero to build a GUI on a Raspberry Pi
Set up and use various electronics like DSI display, peristaltic pump, and motor driver
Mechanical design principals to create the frame and slide-crank mechanism