Development of Home-Based Smart Ugali Cooker for Domestic Application

Abstract

An ordinary house has several chores that need to be done daily or for some days every week. It starts with house cleaning, laundry, kitchen-related chores, and family upkeep. These are works carried out by women in most cases and in most families. However, with the advances, changes, and evolutions being observed in our societies, the case is changing worldwide. Equality in engagement in education and production has brought a balance in such duties which are now carried out by both men and women, from one perspective. On the other perspective, women carry fewer house chores being engaged in other socio-economic activities. Most families and schools in Tanzania and Africa at large take posho (ugali) as a staple food. The whole process of preparing ugali is complex and time-consuming yet other house chores need attention as well. This has increased the need to simplify several house chores since individuals need less contact time with house-oriented activities, and need increased efficiency while putting more focus on other production activities. The development of a home-based smart ugali cooker is rather a needed contribution to the bigger environment of house automation and smart homes. The Home-Based Smart Ugali Cooker is an embedded machine created with the sole aim of easing the process of ugali cooking in households. The machine is created focusing on the smartness of the system, automation, kitchen fitting, neatness, and user-friendliness. This paper illustrates the operations of a home-based smart ugali cooker, which is an embedded system, as well as different components used in creating it. It also explains the advantages it has over the ordinary processes used in preparing ugali and the way forward.