Kerala   

A machine to make chappati

INGENIOUS: The team which developed the machine.

The hot, tasty chappati on your plate may soon be hands-free. Six final year students of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sree Chitra Tirunal College of Engineering at Pappanamcode have developed an automatic machine that can churn out chappatis in large numbers without being touched by hand.

The automatic chappathi maker uses a digitally controlled process to weigh and mix the flour into dough and to roll and bake it into the final product. The size, thickness and number of chappatis can be digitally controlled.

The machine has been developed for use in hotels, restaurants and canteens with large requirement of chappathis. The weighing system consists of a hopper that can store and dispense the required amount of material to the mixing chamber. There are three weighing chambers for flour, hot water and oil.

The three ingredients are blended using a shaft and blade arrangement in the mixing chamber. The dough is then passed through a squeezer and cut into pieces. The cut pieces are transferred to a drive mechanism to flatten the dough. The baking system consists of two discs provided with heating coils.

A wiper mechanism is used to wipe out the chappati to a collecting vessel. It also cleans the plate after baking. Hydraulic systems are used to control all the motions.

The students who developed the machine, P.R. Ganesh, S. Lijo, S. Hareesh, S.V. Harikrishnan, A.S. Jithin and G. Jino, are confident that the simple design, low cost and high productivity of their invention would appeal to the potential users. By varying the addition of ingredients and the design of the machine, it can also be used for preparation of other food items like nan, roti, batura and puri.

T. Nandakumar

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