Coffee is one of Costa Rica’s most prominent industries. Many of the coffee farmers in Costa Rica rely on traditional methods, such as drying coffee beans on raised beds and hand rotating them every half-hour. While these processes are known for producing high-quality coffee beans, they come with high costs and demand considerable time, space, and labor.
Students from the Robotics and Automation Society Chapter at the Costa Rica Institute of Technology recognized the need to automate the coffee drying process in a sustainable way. In partnership with the Centro Agrícola Cantonal de Desamparados (Desamparados Cantonal Agricultural Center), the student team created a system named, “CoffeeDryWise.”
CoffeeDryWise uses various technologies including: raspberry Pi 5 programming, photovoltaic sensors, 3D printing, automatic controllers, and software simulations. The system has an automated mixing feature and a roof to keep the beans fresh and protected from harsh weather conditions. An interactive surface and sensors enable coffee farmers to customize the process according to the bean type and efficiently track the temperature and drying time.
This project was made possible by $7,003.00 in funding from EPICS in IEEE.