This Merienda Maker will automatically make the famous Chinese dish Xiao Long Bao (小笼包) or also called as Soup Dumplings, aka XLB for short. This machine will start from raw ingredients (water, animal bones, minced meat and some spices) and output a set of XLB where a vending machine dispenses it complete with a simple packaging and sauce.
To Do List
- Design Machine V2
- Build Machine
- Design PCB V2
Design Machine V2Learn to weldDesign PCB V1Learn to design a PCBCreate Back-EndDesign a UI
Current Progress
Prototyping
Over the summer of 2023, I learned how to stick weld. Although I am not an expert, welding the prototypes myself will save so much when I have to design and iterate several times.
Mechanical Design
After pivoting from basing of the design to making Onigiri (Japanese Rice Ball), I had to redesign every single part of the machine
Electronic Design
The first iteration of the PCB had some trouble with the power supply of the board so I have to redesign it.
Software Development
The User Interface for the screen of the machine is basically finished. The UI for the administrator dashboard has all the practical information that is needed but if would benefit to make it look nicer.
The User Interface is built with PyQt and has APIs that connect with a server on the cloud that posts transactions from the machine into a database in a cloud server. This software also interacts with Maya (the transaction portal) via webhooks to provide payment QR codes and feedback for when the payment has gone through successfully.