Automatic Pot Stirrer

     When we were asked to create a kitchen object, Cal and I thought for a while and came up with numerous ideas. We finally decided on an idea which was the automatic pot stirrer. We thought that many people get distracted while cooking or have other things to do while they are cooking. Some things require constant stirring while others need to be stirred every 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and so on. Our idea was that we could create a stirrer that could be set up to a timer. We then began working on our project.

This is what most people think of when they think of a mixer.

      We began by setting up all of the components without hooking them up to the pot. This was so that we could write our program and make sure we could get it to operate in the desired manner. We began by wiring up a potentiometer to our Arduino. We then connected a continuous servo to our circuit. These were the only major components needed to complete our project.
     After we had everything wired up, we began writing code. After a few minutes of brainstorming and implementing, our code was done. Everything acted in the way we desired so we began building the automatic pot stirrer.

Here is the pot stirrer after the mount for the servo was connected.

   We ran into a few problems with our program for our pot stirrer. The major problem was that if the potentiometer was changed while it was in the waiting period. It would have to fully cycle again before the timer would change. After our presentation, Dr. Hamid gave us some advice, so we changed our code. Now, our stirrer will immediately change the timing cycle at the time the potentiometer changes. The other problem was that the spatulas we used were very close together. This could be changed by making a bigger diameter plastic circle to attach to the gear on the servo.

Here is the automatic pot stirrer all hooked up and ready to go!