It was not good enough to simply turn on and off our coffee pot. We wanted to indicate the status of the pot. Questions like “is it empty?” “is it brewing"?” “should I wait for a new pot?” all had to be answered. 

To control our coffee pot we had many hurdles to overcome. We needed to be able to switch a pot on and off from Silverlight.

PC Interface

This is the first post in a series of posts about CoffeeTrack. Coffee Track was Product Development’s entry into the first ever RiteTrack challenge.  What our team set out to do was to change what people think RiteTrack can connect and integrate with.  Our mission was to provide a complete coffee tracking system for our office.

Goals

1. Track coffee level.
2. Track when a new pot is done.
3. Track whether or not a pot is empty.
4. Track personal coffee consumption.
5. Notify via twitter when an event occurs.
6. Remotely command the coffee pot using RiteTrack and twitter.

Technology leveraged

1. Silverlight 4
   1. Webcam
   2. COM Automation for serial port access
2. Custom electronics
   1. Arduino
   2. Wireless light controller
3. Twitter
4. Cell phone (to control twitter)
5. RiteTrack 4
6. Image processing
7. Barcode scanner

Firsts!

1. First time a soldering iron has been used with RiteTrack
2. First time we have tracked coffee using RiteTrack
3. First time we have developed image processing algorithms for RiteTrack.
4. First time we have used a bread board with RiteTrack
5. First time we have used Silverlight 4 with RiteTrack.
6. First time we have used a webcam with RiteTrack.
7. First time we have communicated with a serial port using RiteTrack.
8. First time RiteTrack with Twitter have been used to control something.