TEA DIPPER
A mini-machine that is built using Planetary Gears
CONCEPT
I have always been fascinated with gears! My mind was completely blown when I learnt about the different types of gears and gearing mechanisms (when I was in studying engineering). I think gears add beauty to things in motion and it is just so mesmerizing to simply watch two gears mesh perfectly! Knowing that there are a lot of toys with and around gears, I wanted to do something different. I watched and re-watched the motion of planetary gears and found myself hooked onto it. I figured:
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DESIGN ITERATIONS
I took some inspiration from a video on YouTube and so I had a rough look of the machine in my mind.
I started by designing the spur gears and then moved on to the ring gear. It was tricky to fit all the pieces together as I did not want to use any glue. Eventually I wanted the machine to be motor-driven, so I added some details like a motor pocket, later on.
For the internal gear and ring gear meshing, I removed two gear teeth from the ring gear. Thus the sum of the number of teeth on the ring gear were twice the number of teeth on the internal gear. The yellow pin had a hollow groove to hold the string of a tea bag. Interestingly, the yellow pin moves exactly in a straight vertical line, beautifully creating the perfect set-up for a dipper'd up and down motion! After some more small tweaks on trying to make the Tea Dipper look more like a finished product, here's how the prototype looked. (video below) |
INCORPORATING THE MICRO:BIT
Wouldn't it be fun if you Tea Dipper could make customized tea for you?
I wanted the user to be able to communicate with the Tea Dipper about how "strong", "medium" or "light" they wanted their tea to be.
SO, I decided to couple the Tea Dipper's motor with the Micro:bit. The Micro:bit allowed me to connect my phone with the Micro:bit enabled with bluetooth.
I'm not huge into electronics, so I started by trying to control a toy motor. Here's how.
Wouldn't it be fun if you Tea Dipper could make customized tea for you?
I wanted the user to be able to communicate with the Tea Dipper about how "strong", "medium" or "light" they wanted their tea to be.
SO, I decided to couple the Tea Dipper's motor with the Micro:bit. The Micro:bit allowed me to connect my phone with the Micro:bit enabled with bluetooth.
I'm not huge into electronics, so I started by trying to control a toy motor. Here's how.
Finally, I added a clip (inspired by clothespins!) to hold tea bags with or without a string. I also created a coaster-like setting to hold a cup/mug.
In the future, I plan to make a bigger version of this set-up to incorporated tea dipping and coffee brewing together - let's see how that goes!
In the future, I plan to make a bigger version of this set-up to incorporated tea dipping and coffee brewing together - let's see how that goes!