• Log #1

    Ryan • 04/11/2016 at 16:43 • 0 comments

    Hi,

    This project originally came about when I noticed how much food I ended up throwing out at the end of the week, this food was in some cases still packaged, but no good to eat after its use by date (UBD). I realised this was essentially throwing away money.

    The root of the issue was having food stored away and then forgetting about or not realising when its UBD was.

    To combat this problem I decided I would write a program to email me whenever a product was approaching its UBD. I did this using Python and the Raspberry Pi. It worked by emailing me a warning 2 days before, 1 day before and then on the day itself.

    This worked okay however the problem I had was data input. Running on the raspberry Pi I had to use SSH to get in and then update the database in command line, which was a lengthy task for what should be simple. Eventually because of the time factor in entering data the project failed.

    I knew I needed a better way of entering data, something quick and simple for anyone to use. I also wanted to have glance-able display to see what food products were most at risk of being wasted. I decided to create a hardware project to achieve the following:

    1. Reduce household food waste
    2. Have a simple and easy to use interface
    3. A display showing details on products close to UBD
    4. Have a traffic light system showing Green = No products within 3 days of expiry Orange = Products within 3 days of expiry and Red = Products on/past UBD for a quick visual notification
    5. Emailer for tips and recipes based on food nearing expiry to ensure food is not wasted.

    The hardware itself is must be:

    1. Compact for use in a kitchen environment
    2. Be made of durable materials to withstand daily use.

    For the display I am looking into either an e-paper display, this will give me a larger workspace for displaying information and save power for an always on device or a 16x3 LED display, this is still something I need to look into in terms of Pros and Cons. For the traffic light notifications I will use 3 LEDs controlled by the GPIO on the rPi.

    The main thing I am still having problems with is deciding how to make the housing. I would like to have one 3D printed however I have never used any 3D modelling software and may need to find a suitable alternative.

    Thanks for reading the general overview of what I want to achieve with this product, I hope to have more updates soon!