Good Soup

Good Soup is a voice activated device designed to raise a spoon of soup, cereal or smoothie bowl to the user hands free using an innovative pulley design. Using a microphone with an adjustable sensor, the device is adaptable to the user’s needs and desires for the noise level required to initiate the device. This device can be slightly altered to be completely hands free, having many useful applications as shown in the product video but can be expanded to many other uses as well.

The high torque DC motor is easily able to rotate the gears to lift the spoon to the height of the user’s choosing that best fits their needs. At the top, the device comes to a complete stop and will wait for the user to press the button, indicating they are ready for the spoon to be lowered back down. After the user presses the button, the LED will flash as the spoon is lowered and will stop when the spoon is at the bottom. This entire process can be repeated as desired for the best user experience.

- DC Motor (Like this one)

- Microphone sensor (Like this one)

- Spoon

- Gears

- Large Elastic Band (to use as a gear belt)

- Tongue Depressors

- Paperclip (to use as a gear shaft)

- Paper Plate

- Arduino

- Bread-Board

- 220 Ohm Resistor

- 1k Ohm Resistor

- Power Supply

- Wires

- LED

- USB A to B

- 3 Wire Extension cord

- Push-Button

- 3 Pin Header (Like this one)

- H Bridge (This is the one used here)

- Glue Gun

- Scissors

Cut off the bottom of a tongue depressor to be flat. Lay out 3 tongue depressors overlapping slightly, with one of the cut ones at the bottom to measure a total length of 41cm.

Glue together the tongue depressors at each overlap and firmly hold until set.

Cut a tongue depressor in half and glue it down to the paper plate base. Place the glued
3 tongue depressors upright against the glued down base and glue together. Glue the second half of the tongue depressor to the other side of the length of frame.

Repeat steps with another set of tongue depressors, gluing the frame down to be
6.5cm apart.

Cut a tongue depressor to be 2.5cm long and cut in half width wise. Glue the tongue depressor to the bottom of the motor, avoiding the metal piece in the middle that spins, to allow it to continue to rotate freely. Glue the other side of the motor down to one side of the base of the framework, gluing the cut popsicle stick to the paper plate as well.

Glue the larger gear to the motor, keeping the holes free of glue in the process.

Cut and bend the gear shaft wire to fit between the inside of the frame and into the motor, repeat this process for both sides of the motor.

Place the gear belt around the one side of the framework, then glue down the gear shafts to the inside of the frame to line up with the motor.

Put the smaller gear on the other gear shaft, then glue it down to the top of the framework, or at a height that makes the gear belt slightly in tension.

Cut 4 circles out of the paper plate, 1-2cm larger than the gears. Cut a slit to the centre of the circle and cut a small circle out of the middle so it will sit flush against the gears. Glue one circle to each side of both gears.

Place the gear belt on both gears. Cut a 5cm section out of a tongue depressor and glue to the back side of the gear belt.

Take a lighter, heat the spoon up 5.5cm from the end of the spoon and bend it up at a 90 degree angle. Hold until the plastic hardens again. Heat up the spoon 5cm down from the previous bend and bend it down at a 90 degree angle. Hold until the plastic hardens. 5cm away from that bend, heat up the spoon one last time and bend down at 90 degrees again.

Glue the end of the handle of the bent spoon to the front of the gear belt where the tongue depressor was attached.

Glue the microphone roughly 1.5-2cm down from the top on the outside of the frame, facing the side the spoon is attached to.

Make sure power is connected to the Arduino and the gear belt is sitting flat on the gears. Adjust the sensitivity level on the microphone as desired using a screwdriver.

See this Tinkercad Circuit for roughly the wiring of the circuit, and the working code for the system. Refer to the circuit diagram above and the image of the working circuit board above as well as a guide.

See the file containing the code below to use Good Soup as shown. Changes can easily be made to adjust the height the spoon is raised and lowered to, as indicated by the code. Upload code to the Arduino UNO using the Arduino application, connect power to the Arduino UNO and Good Soup should be ready to use! Enjoy!