SOUTH AFRICA – Automated coffee bean roasting machine wins 2014 Cyber Junkyard challenge

A team from College of Cape Town won the first prize at the 2014 Cyber Junkyard Challenge, whose winners were announced on Monday. The team built an automated coffee bean roaster which has already secured commercial attention.
The team consists of Nisrine Jirari, team leader and process controller, software developer David Dyers, electrical engineering student Bertram Blankenberg, mechanical engineering student Kevin Tjihero, Aaron Miller on finances, Magdalene Pretorius on marketing and lecturers Mark Wichman, Ricardo Croy and Chris Josephs, and academic manager Pat Lawrence. The RGB52 full bed roaster is fitted with Siemens HMI colour touch panels to monitor the process, as well as a Siemens S71200 PLC with PID controls.
The College of Cape Town receives R100,000 in Siemens products, and the students will benefit from R14,000 in Siemens training, as well as each receiving a GoPro Hero 3 Silver Edition.
The first runner up was the team from Durban University of Technology, which built a fully automated cocktail machine using Siemens technology. The university receives R50,000 in Siemens products, the students R12,000 in training, and a Pebble Smart Watch each.