Robot serves coffee
Students present their thesis at de Man: Most have heard of robots serving beer. So why not have a robot prepare coffee? That's what three graduates of the technical college at the Carl-Severing-Berufskolleg in Bielefeld thought and the basic idea for their thesis at de Man Automation + Service from Borgholzhausen was born. Together with the automation specialist, the students developed a compact robot cell that will be used at trade fairs in the future.
After a total of eight weeks of implementation, Edgard Braun, Lars Markmann and Niklas Reckmann presented their project last week, initially at the de Man company and then at the technical school. The user first enters the desired coffee size and the amount of sugar and / or milk on a tablet. The robot then picks up a paper cup from the stack and places it under the coffee machine. With a gripper he presses on the lever of the volume brewer until the cup is filled with the desired amount. The robot then transports the coffee - if desired - to the milk station. In order to be able to dose the milk exactly, the students designed a very individual device for this. The sugar cubes are scattered on a dark surface so that they can be easily recognized by a camera. With a separate gripper, the robot now takes the desired number of cubes and puts them into the coffee. He then passes the finished cup to the customer through a turntable. In the future, the robot will be used at de Man's exhibition stands and prepare the coffee for visitors. Here, however, he will be surrounded by a fence for security reasons.
The students - in close cooperation with the experts from de Man - were responsible for the complete implementation of the project, from planning and construction of the required mechanical components to PLC and robot programming. The test runs and process optimization took up the most time, according to the three technicians during the presentation. Everyone involved was completely satisfied with the project. Now the three students can start their professional life with their newly acquired knowledge.