Design and Development eG-Roti A Midterm Report Submitted to Dean of Resources and Alumni By Prakash Kumar Singh(19205007) Rupendra Aryal(19105137) Portfolio: http://tiny.cc/hwlqsz ​ 31st December 2020 A. Title of the project: Design and Development of eG_Roti ​ B. Introduction: This progress report is about the design and development of ‘eG_Roti’ a desktop electric flatbread automation system with potential of taking to market & entrepreneurship. Flatbread common name Roti or Chapati is almost made and consumed once a day by people of India and neighbouring countries. The product under development is expected to save time for users and empower them. Market already has some solutions for automatic roti makers but there exists a gap for its size , affordability, level of automation and ergonomics. Given a product to fill these gaps, it has quite a potential to become the next home appliance for a large number of common people. Problem Statement: To automate cooking process from flour to roti ​ C. Objectives: a. Design and Fabrication of desktop electric flatbread automation system. b. Implementation of user friendliness and cost optimization measures. c. Experiment and performance comparison with other available alternatives. d. Study for feasibility of IOT and remote troubleshooting options. e. Potential business analysis and market validation with MVP. D. Approach: To develop a minimum viable product ( MVP), following approach will be taken. Task1: Ingredient storage and getting required vol to mixing: Ingredients: flour and water Water to be pumped analysing flow with flow meter Flour through a helical transporting mechanism with volume measurement Task 2: Mixing and dough kneading: ingredients will be mixed thoroughly by motorised fork/whisk with accurate position encoder for calculating cycle and torque measurement to ensure dough is made. Task 3: Making dough balls Mixture will be pressed in between two concave plates replica of making round smooth dough balls by hand. Task 4: Transfer of dough ball to press: Slide or pick and place mechanism for transferring dough ball to press1. Task 5: Pressing in heat plate 1: Bread Flattening, Semi cooked. Task 6: Transfering to heat plate 2: Bread flipped and transferred to heating plate 2. Task 7: Puffing: Bread Fully Cooked and Puffed. Task 8 : Dispatch Task 9: Bread stacking E. Novelty: After validating MVP following Novelty will be gradually introduced. a. Control of bread thickness & over cooking both through touchscreen and knob. b. Bread Stacking and Storage. c. Auto clean system. d. IOT and remote troubleshooting. F. Opportunity: Growing concern for fresh home cooked and low carb meals is increasing demand for cooking automation and devices like this come into play. Flat Bread is consumed widely not only in India but across the south asian nation and beyond. The device will save precious time and specially low income families can increase their time on work saving from cooking time. Productive people will find it increasingly helpful to spend their time on more productive works. And it may empower those underprivileged assigned for kitchen works. Success of this device will open areas for automating other cooking processes like for vegetables, doing dishes and series of devices for automating kitchen works. G. Risk Factors: The device is intended for preparing food , so it will naturally have some risk. The route through which material will be processed will have to be of food grade and meet the standards. Any lubricant/chemical leak or corrosion inside the device can lead to contamination of food. It will involve heat so some level of fire and electric risk will be there. Since the device will include various moving parts noise level should be within comfortable reason for people in the kitchen. Most importantly it has to trade off for the time it saved with its purchase and running cost. H. Status of work done: Preliminary CAD modelling of mechanical system and listing major components and their availability. To ensure working of the mechanism motion study and simulation is done in software Solidworks as: Fig: Exploded View and Named Component of eG_Roti I. Project Planning and its Outline: II. Expert Consultation: CAD Review and suggestion from Mentor: Our Mentor advised us to work more with fabrication and testing point of view, with discussion we drew following specific points: 1. Bread Stacking: After being cooked bread will be pushed outward and will need good storage facility until consumed, for this a special storage needs to be designed with heating arrangements such that it can be stored in double helical spring like system similar to vending machine ( in vertical/suitable configuration) or inclined rack system. This will ensure enough spacing is maintained and stored without stacking one over another. 2. Reduction in no of motors : 6 Motors shown in Preliminary CAD is indicative, we can be sure about no of motors/other actuators only after independent tests of each functional subsystems also focus will be to make modular design. 3. Ingredients and handling: Need to find out optimal size for Ingredients storage cartridge, from there measured volume is dispensed from conical bottom for mixing through screw conveyor type mechanism or some other to dough making section. 4. Water: Water is also filled in a separate cartridge-like container, which will have water dispensing from bottom (oil drain jar type design) or with solenoid valve controlled dispensing which is measured and mixed in the dough making section. 5. Bread dispensing: There will be a pusher mechanism (scrapper) to push breads out from cooking/puffing plates. III. Breakdown into Major Subsystem 1. Flour measuring and transfer 2. Water Measuring and transfer 3. Ingredient mixing and dough kneading 4. Dough Ball making system 5. Dough Ball Pressing system 6. Bread puffing system 7. Bread stacking Activities are thus focused towards study of each subsystem , experimentation and integrating these subsystems to make Beta-Prototype. IV. Observation With Existing Roti Maker: Upon experimentation with Roti Maker we have observed: 1. Dough softness should be much higher than making of regular flat bread as , tough dough ball are less likely to spread in round shape and require much higher pressure. 2. Flour spreading in dough ball to make it non sticky is not necessary as heating helps here. 3. Average Bread cook + puffing time was observed to be 2 mins 4. Over cooking while pressing makes bread very stiff like biscuit, which should be taken account for 5. Puffing with heat plates is a quite tough job, hence other alternatives should be experimented, like putting over lpg flame, puffing with microwaves and convection etc V. Current Works on Experimental Setup: 1. Detailed design of Flour Cartridge and measurement system ● Flour Container of size 15X15X25 cc & 3Kg Capacity ● Flour Collected at Bottom of hopper structure is dispensed at required rate and amount by screw conveyer mechanism ● System is removable from structure for cleaning purpose, and made possible by spur gear coupling ● Sensor Feedback when hoper part gets empty 2. Detailed design of Water Cartridge, flow regulation and measurement system ● Water container of about half volume of Flour Container as for Roti Flour : Water = 10:6. ● Water flow if measured by separate device at end of discharge elbow. ● Water flow is made on & off by action of normally closed solenoid valve. ● Half inch diameter pipe from valve is directly mounted at container with washer nut arrangement. 3. Detailed design of Flat Bread Press System ● Two heating plates of market available Roti Makers ● Press Pressure to me measured by strain gauge ● Upper plate have linear movements from two ball screws ● Accurate thickness of bread measured by rotary encoders 4. Detailed Design of Bread Stacking and Storage ● After Puffing, bread is pushed at the big spring shaped helical storage. ● It makes a revolution after each bread arrival, which makes previous to go upo following helical path. ● Casing will make sure of heat retention and generation to keep cooked roties warm. ● Once cooked whole system could be taken out and placed as tray in while dining and cleaning. ● Thus device can me pre set with timer, or remotely turned on for ready to eat bread right at meal time. I. Immediate Future Works: ● Experimental Setup Design of Individual Dough Kneading, Dough Ball Making and Puffing Systems. ● Material, Machine & Resource planning with mentor and lab space allocation for fabrication and assembly of each functional subsystem. ● Experimental Setup and analyzing each system performance. ● System Integration and Improvements planning for alpha Prototype J. Commercialization: a. There are some few products existing in the market since just a few years and are themselves under R&D for improvements, their market test shows a good volume of early adopters in the market. b. Competitive products costs more than 50,000 K. Timeline and Milestones: L. References: ● "Rice Today , Roti Tomorrow : Diets and Diabetes in Urban Indian Households “ : Hentschel Jasmine & Arbor Ann ● "Effect of whole wheat bread and white bread consumption on pre-diabetes patient“ : Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences ● Indian Flat Breads - A Review: Mir Shabir Ahmad ● Development and Evaluation of Composite Flour for Missi roti / chapatti: Journal of Food Processing & Technology ● Design, development and performance evaluation of chapatti press cum vermicelli extruder : Journal of Food Science and Technology ● Home