Midterm Proposal : Kitchen Choreography (Nisha ,Sam , Sandeep)

Smart cutting Board

Sam Meyer

Sandeep Pal

Nisha Pathak

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“Kitchen Choreography”

 

We aim to make cooking for everyone a straightforward, simple job. We will do this by revolutionizing the way people have thought about cutting boards. We will bring to you a smart cutting board that will tell you how to chop or slice vegetables, meat etc. Not just will it show you how to cut but it will tell you if you are doing it right! It’s always an issue to have the exact weight of ingredients for your recipe, so our cutting board will also weigh it for you. Remember the last time you made a dish while looking at your iPad and you had dirty hands, so you had to wash your hands everytime you wanted to go to the next step. You can forget that because we will provide you with a display on your cutting board that will display content starting from recipes to various timers that you have set for multiple dishes you are going to cook. Want to know how you have been performing over time? We will tell you that too!

This smart board consists of a hard glass panel underneath which lie an array of sensors (pressure, temperature). These sensors are also used to give feedback to the user indicating how their chopping/cutting methods correlate to proper technique and to the preparation requirements of the recipe. For example, chopping and slicing will have different pressure patterns, and users can be given a message telling them that their chopping is more like slicing. For extra guidance on chopping technique, the screen under the knife can project width of slices for each ingredient. All of these features will allow the users get quick feedback regarding how their cooking is progressing.

The board will be divided into sections where one area is the cutting board and the remaining area will digitally display relevant information. The chopping area will be able to display widths of the knife’s cuts along with angles at which the ingredients should be chopped. The idea here is to enable the user to prepare their ingredients using proper methods. This smart cutting board will also have a unique timer based around preparing multiple dishes at the same time. A user can input a list of recipes and the cutting board will keep track of preparation times for each step. The cutting board will then take this information and work backwards to schedule when the user should begin preparing certain items so they are all finished at the same time (e.g. when to start thawing meat, when to make the salad, when to set the table, etc). Notification sounds will let users know when to move on to the next step, possibly in a different recipe. In this way, the board will support more than one recipe at a time. Finally, the recipe section will also suggest alternate ingredients in the event that the user doesn’t have certain ones on hand. For example, replacing whole milk with another liquid or being able to substitute a certain type of cheese with another product.

 

Rough Product Specs

Cutting Board

  • Pressure sensor (for chopping/cutting technique, weighing food)
  • Display for recipe (multiple recipes being all shown)
  • Display for graph of force
  • Display of temperature (relevant for meat)
  • ⅓ -¼ of the board displays the recipe and the above numerical data
  • Screen under cutting surface
    • Project width of knife cuts
    • Project angle of knife
  • Timer for steps in recipe:
    • Play music
    • Notifications (audio) of things to prepare and when to start preparing them
    • It also can hold multiple timers for the various items that are being cooked (each is labelled with the item’s name) – beeps when it’s done
  • Suggests alternate ingredients in case you don’t have a particular one at home

 

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