Motorised Outdoor Blinds with Sensor for F&B Outlets

CurrentProblem:

Singapore’s erratic weather will have an impact on most food and beverage (F&B) businesses such as coffee shops and hawker centres. For instance, on rainy days, the tables and chairs near the outdoor areas will become wet, and on sunny days, they will get quite hot. This will lead to a reduction in seating capacity and cause inconvenience for the customers. As a result, the F&B owners are unable to maximise their profits during these times.

CurrentSolution:

In order to maximise their profits, the affected F&B owners will install outdoor blinds to block the rain and the sun, thereby giving comfort to their customers when they dine in and at the same time maximise the seating capacity.

However, we observe that most of these installed outdoor blinds are not motorised, and the F&B staff struggled to open and close the blinds manually, which is time consuming.

Driving Questions:

How can we improve on the current solution by creating a device that can help the F&B staff to open and close the blinds faster, easier and more conveniently?

What safety feature do we need to include in this device?

ImprovedSolution:

We have created a motorised device that can help to roll up and down the outdoor blinds by pressing the “open” and “close” buttons. With this new feature, the blinds can be opened and closed much more easily, quickly and conveniently. This will definitely increase the staff’s work efficiency.

Safety feature:

We have incorporated a sensor to the device. This sensor will stop the blinds from rolling down automatically if it detects any obstacle. With this safety feature, we can prevent the blinds from hitting someone’s head or body when it is rolling down.