Much of the Breadfruit harvested in Borgne, Haiti is wasted due to its extremely short shelf life of 1-3 days. This waste can be prevented by converting the fruit into flour. This process currently utilizes three steps: shredding the fruit, drying it, and grinding it down into flour. A previous senior design group (P15482) has successfully created a shredder, and the fruit will be dried outside using existing methods in Borgne. The cooperative of local farmers now needs a grinder prototype to process their breadfruit crops and sell the resulting flour for profit.

Breadfruit and cross-section

Peeled, pitted and sectioned breadfruit sample

The grinding step has been attempted by two other design groups. A team from the University of Michigan attempted to create a grinder prototype, but experienced issues:

• hand crank was extremely hard to turn
• a bucket was used as collection unit - was not sturdy
• rollers tended to slide out of place during operation

Michigan hand crank prototype

An MET design team from RIT also created a grinder that was more useful by using bike power. However:

• the grinder did not have sufficient capacity
• the collection unit was insufficient
• the grinding mechanism often became clogged.

RIT MET bike-powered prototype

The end goal of this project is to produce a functional, user-friendly breadfruit grinder prototype to reduce food waste for an area with a primarily agricultural economy. The grinder must:

• use human power instead of relying on electricity or fuel
• be made from inexpensive yet resilient parts
• be composed of food safe materials
• be capable of producing consistent flour grain size output

For a more detailed project description, please see the Project Readiness Package.

Project Name

Breadfruit Flour Grinder

Project Number

P16482

Project Family

Sustainable Technologies for the Global Marketplace

Start Term

Fall 2015

End Term

Spring 2016

Faculty Guide

Chris Leibfried, cvlddm@rit.edu

Primary Customer

Sarah Brownell, sabeie@rit.edu

Sponsor (financial support)

Chris Fisher, contact

Project Management

Project Photos and Videos

Imagine RIT

Problem Definition

Systems Design

Subsystem Design

Preliminary Detailed Design

Detailed Design

Build & Test Prep

Subsystem Build & Test

Integrated System Build & Test

Integrated System Build & Test with Customer Demo

Customer Handoff & Final Project Documentation