Date of Award

6-13-2019

Document Type

Thesis - SCU Access Only

Publisher

Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2019

Departments

General Engineering; Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

Jessica Kuczenski

Second Advisor

Walter Yuen

Abstract

Large venues around the world suffer the consequences of long lines and surge timing. In many places, this can lead to problems with alcohol management policy enforcement, venue security, and ultimately a significant loss of potential sales. Though the market for automated sale and serving of food and beverage is rapidly growing, there are many complications that arise from selling age-controlled beverages. Reliable and secure ID verification, quick payment, and quality control are all must-haves for integration into any major venue.

This paper details the conceptualization, design, fabrication, and testing of AutoDraft, a new product designed specifically to alleviate the issues of pouring beer at large venues with the goal of increasing sales, enhancing safety, and improving the customer experience. The final prototype accomplishes this with a 3-step ‘tap-place-pour’ process that quickly moves the customer through age verification, selection, and pouring. Age verification and payment is handled with non-transferrable NFC-enabled wristbands, while an automatic system reliably controls the tilting and pouring of beer. These systems are all controlled by a central Arduino, which communicates over Bluetooth with an Android tablet that supports the custom-built user interface.

By streamlining the age validation, payment, and pouring process, AutoDraft decreases the average time-to-serve for repeat customers from 60s on average down to just 20s, as shown in our validation [1]. Our product also functionally eliminates the ability for users to illegally acquire beverages and provides per-user and aggregate data for venues to make use of. Our final prototype was very well received by end-users, 95% of whom rated the product a 4 or 5 out of 5 for its overall intuitiveness.

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