2011 - University of Johannesburg - Blitz Burger

Students from the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Mechanical Engineering – namely Jason Berry, Warrick Kin, Izak Coetzee and Jules De Ponte – just missed a spot on the podium. Their design entry achieved a really good fourth in the 2011 PneuDrive Challenge, and was acknowledged by the judging panel for having “a high degree of creativity”.
The main purpose of the BlitzBurger is to autonomously and automatically put together a burger of variable ingredients, wrap it and present it to the customer. It is designed to operate using a rotating central arm, around which sits seven food containers, called hoppers. These hoppers each contain the essential ingredients to make one hamburger, such as the two pieces of bun, patty, cheese, tomato, lettuce and sauce. After these ingredients have been assembled together, the burger is then automatically taken to a packing line, packed and then presented to the customer.
The rationale behind this idea is two-fold, one – for FESTO and SEW Eurodrive to be able to showcase their products working together, and two – to propose a design that can improve on the efficiency of fast food restaurants.

Click here to download a summary of the design.

Link to video of the BlitzBurger application: YouTube

Competing Students: Jason Berry, Warrick Kin, Izak Coetzee and Jules De Ponte.

The Environment

Fast Food industry.

The Problem

Fast Food restaurants can often reach operational capacity during periods of high demand, thereby compromising delivery and the customer’s experience.

The Proposed Solution

The BlitzBurger – a machine that can autonomously and automatically make a burger of variable ingredients, wrap it and present it to the customer.

The Market

Any Fast Food restaurant which wants to improve their efficiency in the kitchen.

How It Improves on Current Systems

The BlitzBurger can improve on the efficiency of making and delivery fast food, and can operate without required staff breaks.

The Cost

The design and assembly is an estimated R 270,000.

Unique Features

It is a unique and rather complex concept. Up to now no other machine could be found with a similar concept.

3. Project Overview

The burger machine operates in two stages:
• Stage one whereby the burger is assembled.
• Stage two whereby the burger is packaged.

In the first stage the burger is essentially assembled within a cylinder, composed of two halves next to each other. They are attached to an arm which rotates within the machine, stopping at various food containers, called hoppers.
Each hopper contains essential ingredients to assemble a burger. The cylinder stops briefly underneath each hopper where a measured portion of the specific ingredient is dropped into the cylinder by components called separators. The FESTO DNCI Linear Actuator is proposed as the mechanism to open and close the separators and is attached to the arm itself. After all the ingredients have been placed within the cylinder, the burger is essentially complete and the cylinder moves away from the hoppers and stops above a conveyor. The two cylinder halves then open up and allow the burger to drop onto wax paper that has been positioned on the conveyor.
In the second stage, a wrapper unit folds the wax paper over the burger and starts moving along the conveyer belt towards the position for presentation to the customer. The conveyer belt is driven by SEW Eurodrive’s MOVIGEAR.

3.1 Component Control and Pneumatics

The chief mode of control for the BlitzBurger is through the use of the FESTO FED-550 Touchscreen.

This model was chosen to accommodate colour, which was considered to be helpful in keeping customers interested.
The FESTO Touch Screen is used to communicate the customer’s order to the FESTO CPX control terminal, which essentially controls all the BlitzBurger functions.

This terminal has an Ethernet connection to allow BlitzBurger’s owner, or technicians, to reprogram any burger recipes and to perform diagnostics.

The FESTO CPX terminal houses several digital ports which are used to control both the FESTO and SEW products used in this design.

3.2 Burger Assembly Line and Burger Cylinder

The Team decided upon an assembly line which was of a circular orientation. Ingredient dispensers would be on the periphery, with a central arm which rotated between them. The consensus was reached that the burger would be assembled in a cylindrical container which was directly attached to the arm.

The cylinder in which the burger is essentially assembled is made up of two halves. Each of them are hinged, and attached by mechanical linkages to a pneumatic cylinder. Once the burger has been assembled, the burger is taken over to a packing line, where it is dropped onto a waiting piece of wax paper. This is achieved when the FESTO Pneumatic Actuator, to which the cylinder is attached, actuates, and opens the cylinder. The bottom of the cylinder (where the burger actually rests) is declined to an angle of 10°, so the burger does not stick to the one side of the cylinder or the other.

3.3 Ingredient and Sauce Dispensing

Ingredients that are contained within the Hopper are dispensed by using a separator that slides forward when an ingredient is required. The separator is attached to the machine by means of a bracket, along which it may slide linearly. The rear portion of the separator has a gap in it, through which the measured portions of ingredients fall.
The blue hopper is where the ingredient rests when it is about to be dispensed and keeps the ingredient in place while the separator is moving. Since the separator has to move between the ingredients, it has to move ‘through’ the food container. Therefore, there is a need for another Hopper to keep the food in place, and guide its fall from the hopper to the cylinder below.     
The beauty of this design is that it is an energy efficient system. The separators are opened and closed by the FESTO DNCI Positioning Actuator. The advantage of this design is that the separators are easy to design and inexpensive to manufacture.
Another noteworthy factor which deserves some mention is the drainage facility on separators likely to be exposed to wet ingredients, such as the patties and tomatoes. The drainage is achieved by means of many small holes drilled into the separator plate. Any oil from the patties, juice from the tomatoes or any other excess moisture will drain through these holes. Underneath these holes is a trough to collect the waste liquid. This trough is removable, which facilitates easy cleaning.
The idea was to employ the same sort of system which is used in soap dispensing mechanism and a concept was reverse engineered for the BlitzBurger. The sauce dispenser is designed to dispense approximately 8-10ml of sauce in one squirt, which is enough for one hamburger.

3.4 Packing and Presentation Mechanism

The packing and presentation mechanism makes use of the SEW Eurodrive MOVIGEAR to wrap, rotate and move the burger to the awaiting customer.

Fig 7. Packing and Presentation Mechanism