Project
| # | Title | Team Members | TA | Documents | Sponsor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | Fast Towel Disinfecting Cabinet |
Christopher Willenborg Harsh Agrawal Yujie Wang |
Kyle Michal | design_document4.pdf final_paper2.pdf presentation1.pptx proposal2.pdf |
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| Chris Willenborg(cwillen2), Harsh Agrawal(hagrawa3), Yujie Wang(ywang504) Problem: According to research, a bath towel should be washed every 3-4 days. Many people do not have the time to wash it often enough, so the bath towel becomes a perfect place for bacteria to grow and develop. Soon enough, bacteria grows in size and quantity, producing pungent odor. Solution Overview: We propose to design a space-efficient cabinet, in which people can hang one towel at a time. In the cabinet, there are going to be UV-C LEDs on both side (front and back of the towel) of the cabinet. These UV-C LEDs will disinfect the towel in a matter of minutes. Subsystems: 1.Lights : Our current model uses two UVC LEDs to kill the bacteria. We are currently planning on using two lights because the ones that we have found are quite expensive at approximately $20 per light. 2.Carousel : We will need a means of moving the towel such that we can achieve full coverage of the towel. We will be using a carousel that is composed of either belts or pulleys with clips attached that the towel will be hanging from. We are not sure whether we will choose to use a DC or AC motor as of yet to achieve the best cost and space efficiency. 3.Microcontroller : We will need a microcontroller to control the speed of our motor and hence the rotation speed of our towel. We also do not want the UVC lights to be on all of the time because after a certain amount of time the effects of having the lights on will not justify their energy consumption. We will also want to use the microcontroller for our user interface. We currently envision a couple of options enable by pushbuttons. 4.Chassis : With our current model we will need a chassis that is slightly taller and wider than an average towel, which is 54” x 30”. The anticipated depth is about 18” because the viewing angle of most UVC lights is 130 degrees. We will anticipate the worst case scenario for the viewing angle, which is 120 degrees. We will need to decide which motor we are using and create a mount for it that will allow us to turn the pulley and support the weight of the motor without vibrating or making too much noise. We are hoping to find a low cost reflective material to construct the chassis out of or line the inside of our chassis that will allow any light that misses the towel directly to reflect back and strike the towel. We will need something to securely and accurately mount the UVC lights to the front and rear walls of our chassis as well. 5.Power Source : We will need to decide which motor we are using before we can determine what size of power source we will use, but we know that most UVC lights have a range between 5V and 9V. Criterion for success: The most common bacteria on bath towels is coliform bacteria, or E.coli. A single E.coli is 2 microns long and about 0.5 microns in diameter. We will sample the same spots on the testing towel before and after we put it in our cabinet for 10 minutes. We will then put our samples on petri dishes and use a microscope to determine the size. At the end we will check how much smaller are the colonies on average than they are prior to the disinfection process. If the colonies at the end are approximately 50% smaller or fewer, we will conclude our success. Reach Goals: 1.Ventilation : We would like to automate a ventilation system with our microcontroller if we have sufficient time. This would include adding a fan or two at the bottom of our chassis and vents that physically open and close on top of the chassis. The vents on top would be dependent upon which cleaning state the towel is in. 2.2.Door Lock : The door lock would also need to be controlled by the microcontroller and would keep people from opening the door while the UVC lights or carousel are in use. 3.3.Self-Sanitizing Mode : Ideally we could arrange the UVC lights such that the inside of our chassis can be fully covered by the lights. We could add an additional option to the user interface to sanitize the chassis in an attempt to keep the chassis itself clean. More information can be found in our original post: https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=30465 |
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