Design Review I

Our group's first design review was given today and as a fun test, we passed out muffins that were divided in half as muffin tops and muffin bottoms. Verifying the popularity of the muffin tops, it was to no one's surprised that the last remaining muffins were roughly 10-12 muffin bottoms.

After our presentation, concerns were raised in regards to our project:
Design_Review_1_Paper
Design_Review_1_Presentation

1.) Thermal Expansion of aluminum, which is the primary material for our overall structure. Raised by Professor Ateshian, we note that Al has a high thermal expansion coefficient. A different material could be looked into, such as ceramic. We originally choose aluminum due to its ease of manufacturing and the fact that it is a material we are used to working with. 

2.) The potential for a cookie sheet effect around the location of the dough's holding mechanism. Since we need a support, as small as it is, such an issue will be difficult to avoid but will be taken into account during the following redesigns for Design Review II. 

3.) A final note is made by Professor Myers in that our design can currently only make 1 muffin or baked good at a time. Such is the case, we will look into designing an additional structure to take this into account pending funds and time remaining after finishing the initially discusses goals.

The following video demonstrates the proposed motion of our device and was done through Creo:

We also performed calculations pertaining to our proposed model:

In the above figure, the colored cyclical random curves represent the x, y, and z measures while the lines of matching colors represent the averages of the Creo measures. The dashed black lines represent the position of the center of the concentric rings, the point at which we desired the averages to fall. Though this analysis was done for just 20 seconds, there is a very small deviation in the average position from the center position, verifying the design assumptions.

In addition to tracking the motion of the point, a connection reaction torque measurement was defined to determine the amount of torque required to produce 30 RPM. Such a result required near .5 Nm of torque, which will be taken into consideration for motor selection.

Thus, over the winter break period, we will look into 2 major areas of concern:
   i. Spring loaded motor versus any other type of external motor
   ii. Aluminum material versus ceramic or steel for the major of parts to be manufactured

High-Temperature Motor and Literature Review

Consulting with Professor David Vallancourt revealed that the use of a motor within the oven is not highly recommended, so alternative methods would have to be researched.

Weighing the selection of the aerotrim versus that of a conventional rotisserie oven, we justify the use of an aerotrim as we aim to eventually make use of less dense doughs. The use of a conventional rotisserie oven would fail in this aspect as verified through preliminary testing since a drooping effect due to gravity would occur. 

Completion of the literature review was done with all three parts taken into consideration: Literature_Review

As a result, we are currently working with a spring loaded mechanism for the motor device that can potentially be purchased through Stock Drive. 

With the Design Review I coming up, we decided to split up the work in order to prepare for the presentation.

Below are the relevant documents from the Literature Search used moving forward:
Gyroscopic Amusement Apparatus Patent
Continuous Bread Baking Article

Initial Testing and Literature Review

A meeting of all members resulted in the testing of a rotating piece of a dough. With a dense piece of dough on a skewer that was attached to a hand drill, we decided to see if rotation would have any dramatic effects on baking. After an amount of time passed for the baking process to occur, we noted that a successful crust was produced on all exposed surfaces and the dough was deemed edible by all members of the group. 

Alleviating that initial concern, we moved on to perform a literature review in which we divided into three sections:

Patent Search: Andrea Weiss and Dan Mullins 

Journal Search: Brendan Huss and Tom Kesling

Internet Search: Brian Huynh

Searching ideas for a holding mechanism, we stumbled upon the aerotrim, a gyroscope like device that spins with three rings. We believe a similar design will allow for enough degrees of rotation while hold the bread steady in the middle with minimal contact. 

The meeting concludes noting that the literature review is due on November 20, 2012. 

Project Selection

Today's design review class presented an overview of what the semester would look like with effective due dates for deliverable material: Senior_Design_Milestones

In addition, we note that the project due date will be next week, October 23, 2012. Taking the critique of the review panel into consideration, we have decided that the bread maker, or proposed name Bake³⁶⁰, would be a suitable senior design project. Such a project will provide the necessary challenges throughout the course of a year to produce a quality design and product. 

Beginning concepts of the design aims to produce a bread that is going to have a crust on all sides, thus, no typical container will be used for the holding mechanism such as a cookie sheet or a muffin pan. The proposed idea will aim to rotate the dough such that all sides are exposed to the open air of the oven. 

Of concern at the moment is the usage of a dense dough, as a more liquid type dough can potentially fall off the holding mechanism. The design of the holding mechanism will be key as is the use of any motors or rotating devices subjected to the high temperatures of an oven.