CPSC 483 – Computer System DesignCoff-e-mail ProposalFebruary 9, 2004Don McGeeEric PedenPayton QuackenbushZack RomanPage 2 of 20Table of ContentsIntroduction.........................................................................................................................................................3Project Objectives .............................................................................................................................................3Solution ...............................................................................................................................................................5Design..............................................................................................................................................................7Microcontroller and Ethernet........................................................................................................................7Camera Comparisons:...................................................................................................................................8Lever................................................................................................................................................................9Button............................................................................................................................................................10Water Level .....................................................................................................................................................11pH Sensor ...................................................................................................................................................... 12Proposed Design............................................................................................................................................. 13Design Validation ........................................................................................................................................... 13Schedule of Tasks ........................................................................................................................................... 14Pert Charts ..................................................................................................................................................... 15Project Management and Team Work.............................................................................................................. 16Milestones.................................................................................................................................................. 16Source Code................................................................................................................................................ 16Team Assignments...................................................................................................................................... 17Societal, Safety, and Environmental Analysis................................................................................................... 17Appendix A: Qualifications of Team Members .................................................................................................... 18Appendix B: Product Datasheets ........................................................................................................................ 19Appendix C: Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 20Page 3 of 20IntroductionThe coffee machine in the Computer Science Department lounge emits the very popular caffeinebeverage consumed by a growing number of faculty, staff, and students in the department. Themachine is shared by so many people that it is currently inconvenient to get coffee – no one knowswhether coffee is left in the machine, how old the coffee is, or when someone has just brewed a freshpot. Also, since it is frequented so often, it would be convenient to generate usage statistics of themachine. These statistics could also allow for justification of a secondary or more powerful coffeemachine.Enter Coff-e-mail. The Coff-e-mail project sets out to bring internet notification and web-basedmonitoring of the coffee machine in the lounge of the Computer Science Department. Coff-e-mail is anembedded system which will be non-intrusively retro-fitted to work with the current coffee machine inthe Computer Science Department lounge (it will be designed to interface with any coffee machine). Itincludes sensors to detect when coffee brewing starts and the amount of coffee left in the machine(coffee level), along with a camera to take pictures when people fill their coffee mugs with fresh coffee.Coff-e-mail delivers a full-blown web server which can be accessed off the local intranet, which displayscoffee statistics (pots of coffee brewed per day, last brew time, cups of coffee per brew, etc.) and picturesof people filling their coffee mugs. Client software will be available to poll Coff-e-mail and notify theuser that a fresh pot of coffee is brewing or that coffee is running out and a fresh pot should be brewed.Project Objectives• Web cam interfaced to take pictures and store them in non-volatile memory• Sensors to detect coffee brewing and coffee levels• Web server accessible over the intranet which displays coffee status, coffee statistics, and webcam picturesPage 4 of 20• Notification software running on Windows which will notify the user that coffee brewing hasstarted or that the coffee level is low and a fresh pot should be brewedThe educational objectives for Coff-e-mail include embedded system design, network communications,web-based programming, software engineering, and ubiquitous computing.Page 5 of 20SolutionWeb-enabled devices have typically been thought of as "hobbyist" projects, and as a result most of thetechnical literature deals with developing new protocols and hardware for "smart appliances" and dataacquisition devices (DAQs) rather than hooking web servers up to existing devices. [Che02] and [Sch01]deal with smart appliances; both articles discuss communication protocol issues. Because of our needfor a web server, we chose instead to use TCP/IP for communication rather than a custom protocol, but[Sch01] provided a number of useful guidelines for building devices that stay out