A Decent Kettle

Disclaimer

Please do not email me about this project without reading the disclaimer above.

Introduction

Your job is twofold, to come up with a decent mechanical design and to write the programming to simulate the control system for the sensors. You might look at high end kettles such as the Braun, Cuisinart, Oster and Toastess for ideas. Assume money is no object.

Attributes of a Good Kettle

Here are the attributes of a good kettle:

1. Durable. It a crime against nature to create non-recyclable, disposable objects.
2. The kettle should not scald or burn the user. This means it must be difficult for the user to get her hand in the flow of any steam or water. It should not burn you if you touch it in the wrong place. It should not spit if you pour while the water is still boiling. Perhaps the kettle could be designed like a steel Thermos bottle so that the outside surface stays cool, both to save energy and to avoid burning the user.
3. It should be easy to tell from a distance the three states of the kettle: off (dark), coming to a boil (red) and ready (green). All of today’s kettles have at most a two-state indicator.
4. When the water is ready, it should make a cheerful noise to tell you, not just in inaudible click. The sound can be made electronically. It does not have to be a steam whistle.
5. People often set water on to boil during a TV commercial then forget and come back later and the water is cold again. Deal with this in three ways:
   1. a whistle when the water is ready (not necessarily a steam whistle). It can be a cellphone-style ringtone.
   2. Insulate the kettle so the water stays hot after the delay.
   3. Use an indicator to let the user know the water is still hot after the delay.
6. The control to turn the kettle on and off should be large, prominent and obvious. You want guests to be able to use the kettle without training.
7. The kettle should be easy to clean inside and out. You need to be able to scour out mineral deposits. This means the inside of the kettle should be cavernous without various pipes and protuberances that are difficult to clean.
8. It should be easy to tell just how much water is in the kettle. Looking at water is a glass window is not good enough. You need an easy-to-read indicator. Perhaps you could use a LED (Light-Emitting Diode) strip that uses weight to calibrate the degree of fullness.
9. If you turn the kettle on without water, it should immediately turn off, not fry the element.
10. The kettle should encourage you, but not demand, that you empty boiled water from a previous boiling and refill with fresh cold water.
11. The kettle should turn off before it boils completely dry to avoid baking on minerals and frying the element.
12. Energy efficiency. Don’t needlessly radiate energy. See what you can with the kettle’s microprocessor to train the user to boil just the amount needed, no more.
13. Consider warning the user about poor water quality, too warm, too cloudy…
14. Design the base so that if the counter that the kettle rests on floods, it does no damage.

Implementation

Your sensors might measure conductivity, weight, temperature, contacts with the base…

Consider using an induction rechargeable battery in the kettle so that the microprocessor can continue to function even when the kettle is removed from the base or is not firmly settled on the base.

The Plumbed Kettle

Consider a second design that uses a built-in unit with water supply plumbing. You would put your cup or pot underneath and push a button to select the amount of water you want boiled and poured. You put your cup on tray under the unit and it warms just that amount of water and trickles it into the cup. It does not maintain a hot water tank, unless you can figure out how to superinsulate it. It might keep a small supply, say a cupful ready to go immediately.

Toastess KJK-55

This was my immediately previous kettle that died a premature death.

• The Toastess has a big red (shown grey in the illustration) lever on-off with a knob on the end. It is obvious and easy to use.
• It is easy to fill.
• It turns off reliably when the water boils

• It does not whistle.
• The on-light is placed on the kettle so that it is hard to see.
• After a few months of use it stopped heating water, though the red light worked perfectly.
• It scalds you.

Oster 5966-33

This is the kettle I have now. It is a reasonably good kettle:

• It is sturdy.
• It is easy to clean inside and out.
• It does not usually scald you when you pour water out.
• It has a hypnotic sexy blue flickering light to let you know it is on.
• It is tall and skinny. This lets you boil a small amount of water at a time.

• The various logos and decorative trim are wearing off.
• It makes no noise when the water is ready.
• It burns you if you touch the metal body.
• It is hard to tell how much water is in it. It has a water-lever viewing window but it is small and the water line is indistinct, so it is easy to start the kettle up empty. You mainly have to tell how much water is in it by weight. The problem is one cupful feels very much the same as empty.
• It is not very clever about quickly turning off if there is no water and quickly recovering once you refill it. It goes into a sulk for 15 minutes or so.
• It stopped working, but this was because the contacts on the base and the bottom of the kettle were corroded. I cleaned them and treated them with DeoxIT Red and I have had no trouble since.

Books

Book referral for The Design of Everyday Things

	recommend book⇒The Design of Everyday Things
	by	Donald A. Norman	978-0-385-26774-8	paperback
	birth	1935-12-25 age:82	978-0-465-06709-1	hardcover
	publisher	Currency	978-0-465-00394-5	eBook
	published	1990-02-01	978-1-4526-0412-1	audio
			B003KVKYAM	kindle
Though this is not particularly about designing GUIs, I love this book. It was like meeting somebody else who understood my frustration with the ineptness in the design of user interfaces for computer programs, household appliances and just about anything mechanical. He grabbed ill-formed ideas out of my mind and laid them clearly on paper. A classic. The principles behind creating simple, useful, easy to understand appliances. Much of this thinking also applies to computer programs. This is a great read, highly entertaining. This book is sold under three alternate ISBNS: paperback:978-0-465-06710-7, 978-0-465-05065-9, 978-0-385-26774-8.
Online bookstores carrying The Design of Everyday Things abe books anz abe books.ca abe books.de amazon.ca amazon.de Chapters Indigo amazon.es Chapters Indigo eBooks iberlibro.com abe books.com abe books.fr amazon.com amazon.fr Barnes & Noble abe books.it Nook at Barnes & Noble amazon.it Kobo junglee.com Google play abe books.co.uk O’Reilly Safari amazon.co.uk Powells other stores
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.

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