Automated S’more Press
Format
SOECS Senior Project Demonstration
Faculty Mentor Name
Kyle Watson
Faculty Mentor Department
Mechanical Engineering
Abstract/Artist Statement
This project involves the design and fabrication of an automated s’more press to assemble, roast, and press a chocolate square and marshmallow in between two graham crackers. S’more components are dispensed via conveyor belts. Each ingredient has its own conveyor belt in which multiple graham crackers, marshmallows or chocolate squares are stacked on top each other on their respective conveyor belts. Friction between the bottom ingredient and conveyor belt pulls the bottom ingredient out from underneath the stack while the ingredients above are held in place by a restraining surface. Once the s’more is assembled, it is transported into an oven for roasting and then transported to the press point before being ejected. The appliance was built to make the process of assembling and eating a s’more a cleaner experience while enabling automation to reduce human input. Impurities from a roasting stick and smoke are not fit for human consumption, but the appliance will eliminate them by heating the s’more in a clean compartment without the marshmallow absorbing any unnecessary contaminants. Another benefit of uniformly melting the chocolate and marshmallow is that they will distribute their total volume over a larger surface area of the graham cracker. When one takes a bite of the s’more, the graham cracker will not fracture into multiple pieces due to a uniform distributed load from the melted chocolate and marshmallow mixture. Dispensing the ingredients properly is a primary objective for this project and through physical testing this objective has been met. The oven concept provides some heat output however the objective of getting an oven temperature of 250ºF to melt a marshmallow has not been fully realized.
Location
School of Engineering & Computer Science
Start Date
5-5-2018 3:30 PM
End Date
5-5-2018 4:30 PM
Automated S’more Press
School of Engineering & Computer Science
This project involves the design and fabrication of an automated s’more press to assemble, roast, and press a chocolate square and marshmallow in between two graham crackers. S’more components are dispensed via conveyor belts. Each ingredient has its own conveyor belt in which multiple graham crackers, marshmallows or chocolate squares are stacked on top each other on their respective conveyor belts. Friction between the bottom ingredient and conveyor belt pulls the bottom ingredient out from underneath the stack while the ingredients above are held in place by a restraining surface. Once the s’more is assembled, it is transported into an oven for roasting and then transported to the press point before being ejected. The appliance was built to make the process of assembling and eating a s’more a cleaner experience while enabling automation to reduce human input. Impurities from a roasting stick and smoke are not fit for human consumption, but the appliance will eliminate them by heating the s’more in a clean compartment without the marshmallow absorbing any unnecessary contaminants. Another benefit of uniformly melting the chocolate and marshmallow is that they will distribute their total volume over a larger surface area of the graham cracker. When one takes a bite of the s’more, the graham cracker will not fracture into multiple pieces due to a uniform distributed load from the melted chocolate and marshmallow mixture. Dispensing the ingredients properly is a primary objective for this project and through physical testing this objective has been met. The oven concept provides some heat output however the objective of getting an oven temperature of 250ºF to melt a marshmallow has not been fully realized.