Project Lazycook, an auto-cooking self-cleaning meal machine

Projects General Guidance
1

I'm very lazy, and starting engineering/electronics, so I'm starting to think about how to automate the daily cooking of ultra-basic meals, with cheap parts, and I'd be interested to read whatever idea about the topic.

Googling, it seems 2x 12V solenoid valves would do, or sprinkle valves as I read on the other thread, for water/milk liquid input, but the sink output has to deal with big food particles, so it needs something else, but it can be a simple blocking mechanism at the extremity, since it's at the sink.

This needs:

  • a mechanism at the sink output to empty the cooking container
  • a release mechanism for the cereals/beans/pasta. They could be stored in cheap plastic bottles, so it has to handle a bottle opening, or pierced bottle caps. I'm thinking about using a circular disk on a stepper motor, with one hole in a section, then one motor simply can control many input bottles.
  • from what I read I decided it's not a good idea to tamper with the heater wire/plug, and so this would use instead a servo on the heater circular control-thing, maybe by simply gluing a gear on its head
  • then I wonder about how to clean this best, the sieve, the tubes, and how to pierce the pot, or to drain it. I couldn't find a cheap pot with a hole in it.
  • the milk could travel in a container, instead of a tube, to reduce waste, or there could be water also in the fridge, connected to the same tube with a 3-way connector somehow, so it cleans and pushes the milk. How can it be 3-way? And anyway, could Arduino then make this happen?

I'm kinda busy with stuff, and quite shy, I mostly wanted to share the idea, if it interests people, I'd like it if more skilled engineers made it happen. I'm literally starving, here, or well, almost literally. I'm not sure if this is the right forum for a general Arduino engineering project, I couldn't find better! Feel free to share tips on how to make it better, if anyone is interested. It's not a project for myself, it's a project for everyone. haha

Feed the lazy, lest they perish!

Thanks,
Have a nice day

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An Arduino board can be used to control the process. However, I have doubts if you can finish this project, because there are many things going on : software, electronics hardware, mechanical, food safety (cleaning and food grade materials), and so on.
The mechanical part together with the food safety could be the biggest issue.

Do you know the sous-vide project from Adafruit ?

Perhaps you better start with that project. It is a good tutorial and the resulting sous-vide is very useful as well.