Design and Construction of an automated bushera making machine

Abstract

This is a final year project report which is educational and career developmental providing practical experiences and use of engineering knowledge. The project is entitled “Design and construction of an automated bushera making machine. This project is basically focused on the development of a functional model of an automated bushera making that maintains consistency in all its processes without jeopardizing the quality and taste of the porridge. By the use of a user control interface, this project automates a thermal-controlled water boiler, a volumetric control process for both water and flour and motor speed control for effective stirring using Pulse Width Modulation. (PWM). The developed system was tested by using process iteration, revised design and Proteus software. The model keeps track of all the steps involved in making the tasty porridge beginning from in-putting the amount of water, measuring the flour using a load cell, stirring of the thick paste, boiling water (monitored using a TMP36 sensor), millet flour and cold water motorized mixing, and millet stew to boiling water mixing process. The device timing process uses the 16MHz clock available on the AVR atmega328 Microcontroller with each process tracked alphanumerically on a LCD. The failures attributed to inconsistent processes and a long time taken to prepare bushera brought in the need for a low cost automated device. This functional prototype automates the preparation of fast and bulk millet based porridge which is essential and beneficial to both young and old. There were also some difficult situations and challenges met which were worthwhile, nevertheless, the project objectives were all achieved. The overall time the process takes to prepare the delicacy is a bit short as compared to the manual process of making the bushera meal and also the time it took the manual machine. This report ends with the recommendations to the students, university and the organization basically to improve the automated prototype.