Automatic Tofu Press

In Carnegie Mellon’s Mechanical Design: Methods and Applications course, my team and I created the Automatic Tofu Press. The task was to adapt an existing product to make it more accessible to people with disabilities. We decided to eliminate the downward force and twisting required to operate a tofu press by implementing a linear motor and piston. The piston continues to move downwards until optimal pressure is achieved. It then checks the pressure every 10s and readjusts to maintain the pressure for five minutes. At this point, the piston raises and the tofu has reached desirable water extraction.

To learn more about our development process, read our final report.