Development of a smart ugali cooker

Abstract

Ugali is a thick porridge that is one of the popular staple foods in East Africa. Traditional methods of ugali preparation, cooking, and consumption are described. Firewood has been used as the primary energy source followed by charcoal. In East Africa, electricity grids have expanded and reached a wider network, which has opened opportunities for electric cooking to domestic consumers, especially in urban that was previously dominated by charcoal, which is in scarce supply due to government regulations on environmental conservation. In this project, the smart ugali cooker was designed and developed to automate the process of cooking ugali in households which is faster, safer, and healthier. The smart Ugali cooker is an automated kitchen appliance designed to boil the mixture of water and maize flour into a dough mixture referred to as ugali. It consists of a driving motor, stirrer, flour dispenser, heat source, a cooking pan, a temperature sensor that measures the temperature of the boiling water in the pan, and the control system (Arduino board). The device has basic units that are a dispenser, stirring unit, electronic control unit, pan, and electric heater. These units were fabricated and integrated to form the complete cooking device. Thereafter, the Arduino board was programmed to control the cooking process. Cooking experiments were conducted, on the cooking duration and the texture of ugali based on water to flour ratio. The results showed that ugali was cooked after ten minutes and the quality was good for consumption. In recommendation, the rightful flour to water ratio must be applied to obtain the desired texture of ugali