Tea Pi
A voice controlled robotic tea maker built with Raspberry Pi
Status: Complete
Tea Pi
As a huge tea aficionado, it makes sense that one of my first hardware projects was to #buildabetterteapot. Tea Pi began as a project worked on between classes in my freshman year dormitory at Georgetown. Although the assorted wires, inept soldering, and endless sessions of me yelling at a e-cycled web camera to get voice-controls to work may have unnerved my roommate, the end result was well worth it.
Since development in 2014 the project has received a fair amount of attention with 90,000+ views on Youtube and more than 8,000 views on Hackaday.io (where it was one of the first 200 projects on the platform). It has been featured on a numerous blogs including Hackaday, and The Pi Hut.
Features
Precise-ish water temperature controls (within 1 degree Fahrenheit) using a temperature sensor wrapped in food-safe heat shrink.
Automatically lowers tea leaves into pot when water is at the right temperature.
Automatically raises tea leaves from pot when steeping is done and maintains the tea at comfortable drinking temperature until poured.
Receives voice instructions (including the iconic “Tea. Early Grey. Hot.”) and prepares tea according to specified steep time and temperature, with pre-configurable macros (e.g. “Prepare Green Tea”)