Kitchen Kare
By the STEMgineers: Ronit Avadhuta, Katy Stuparu, Rachel Haynes, and Kate Connoni
Elderly or disabled people often have trouble using kitchen appliances safely due to not being able to see, hear, or remember well. More specifically, clients have issues with stove and oven safety. In fact, this causes fire-related injuries and harms the third leading cause of death for the elderly (Agesafe, 2017). For example, they may not be aware that they left the stove or oven on. The dangers that the elderly and disabled face in the kitchen prevent them from independence and put their safety at risk. The goal of this project is to create a device targeted towards the elderly and disabled, specifically those with vision, hearing, or memory loss, to alert them of boiling water and a stove or oven left working.
Elderly or disabled people often have trouble using kitchen appliances safely due to not being able to see, hear, or remember well. More specifically, clients have issues with stove and oven safety.
Kitchen Kare consists of two separate designs: Kitchen Kare Motion and Kitchen Kare Heat. The first design provides kitchen safety by detecting motion around the stove. When the user is away from the stove for 30 minutes and the stove is on, the user must communicate through the bracelet that they want the stove to stay on. Otherwise the stove shuts off. The second design detects heat in the stove/oven and shuts off the stove if the temperature becomes unsafe. Both designs utilize a wall plug to control electricity going to the stove/oven and a bracelet for the user. The bracelet alerts the user through various methods such as beeping, vibrating, and flashing to accommodate for disabilities that the user may have. The third design is an extension for the first two: a mobile app to replace the bracelet in case it is more convenient for the user.
To compare these solutions, refer to the following Decision Matrix:
Here is a video of the final design demonstrating turning off and on a toaster while giving user signals (blinking and buzzing) in addition to sensing a user via a button and Sparkfun Grid-eye Infrared Sensor. Refresh the page to restart the video .
To build our device, tutorials on wiring for the arduino were first researched. The wiring for the BME280 sensor was first set up, and the code was added. Then, to test the device, it was used to measure the temperature surrounding an oven as it heated up to different temperatures (Preliminary Testing). Once the BME280 sensor began to work, wiring and code was created for the infrared sensor. Additionally, the same process was conducted to get the alerts, light, beeper, and screen, to work. Code for a button to disable the beeping was also created. Once the wiring and code was complete for each individual section of the arduino, the pieces were combined using a breadboard. Throughout the process, many sensors such as the OLED and the BME280 had to be reconfigured from their separate codes into a consolidated code in order for successful results. Then, tutorials were researched for the wall plug and it was added to the breadboard.
For more information, consult the following presentation: