Automated young coconut scraping and sorting

machine through sequential minimal optimization

Presented to the Faculty of

Computer Engineering Department

College of Computer Studies and Engineering

Jose Rizal University

Ermita, Manila

by

Enetorio, Marriane M.

Gonzales, Jayme Riel

Tamares, Milisa May B.

Tuaño, Kim Caren V.

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

Date of Presentation

July 17, 2018

 Chapter I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

1.1 INTRODUCTION

There are so many uses in every part of the coconut that is the reason why it is well

known as the “the tree of life”. The coconut is a fruit that is commonly source of nutrition and

sustained thirst and hunger in many generations around the world. The produce of the coconut

are frequently the milk, meat and oil that helps us get the alimentary of it. It is also fabricated on

many products sell in the market because of it natural elements.

Coconuts is the only fruit that has a diverse amount of water inside when it is still in its

younger stages. Aged coconut tend to have less amount of water and creates layers of endosperm

that is create insides of the walls of the coconut. The endosperm is the edible meat of the coconut

and has numerous amount of nutrients inside. Therefore, the coconut in its many stages of aging

has many applications and uses throughout its development.

The green young coconuts has a lot of refreshing water that are good for dehydration and

treatments to other illnesses. Young coconuts has a numerous types of food supply and

sometimes produce elements of products such as the vegetable oil for the populations of atolls.

The meat can be eaten straight from the coconut or even processed. When processing to obtain

coconut oil it is dried to form copra that is pressed.

 The parts of the young coconut contain natural elements that can be extracted into

different materials. First the coir is the hard exterior that gives of the green skin of the coconut, it

has a natural elastic fiber extracted from coconut husks. It can be used to make, floor mats and

doormats, brushes, ropes and strings, stuffing for mattresses, and caulking for boats and fish nets.

Coconut husk and shells elements are attractive biomass fuel these are all good

alternative source for creating charcoal. The advantages of using coconut biomass as a fuel is

that coconut is a permanent crop and available round the year so there is constant whole year

supply. The activated carbon manufactured from coconut shell is considered extremely effective

for the removal of impurities in wastewater treatment processes. Husks together with coconut

shells can be used for fuel, and are a source of charcoal, also to buff floors, including as a

mosquito repellent when burned (the smoke repels the insects).

The coconut husk are also has a numerous amount of lignin and cellulose, and that is why

it has a high calorific value of 18.62MJ/kg. The chemical composition of coconut husks consists

of cellulose, lignin, pyroligneous acid, gas, charcoal, tar, tannin, and potassium. The husk are

commonly used as a pot for plants. But in discarded husks are used for variety of household

products and flooring materials.

When talking about the coconut shell it is known to be a wasted which means it has a

plenty of sources throughout the tropical countries. In many countries, coconut shell is subjected

to open burning which contributes significantly to CO2 and methane emissions. Coconut shell is

widely used for making charcoal. The traditional pit method of production has a charcoal yield of
25–30% of the dry weight of shells used. The charcoal produced by this method is of variable

quality, and often contaminated with extraneous matter and soil. The smoke evolved from pit

method is not only a nuisance but also a health hazard.

The coconut shell has a high calorific value of 20.8MJ/kg and can be used to produce

steam, energy-rich gases, bio-oil, biochar etc. It is to be noted that coconut shell and coconut

husk are solid fuels and have the peculiarities and problems inherent in this kind of fuel.

Coconut shell is more suitable for pyrolysis process as it contain lower ash content, high volatile

matter content and available at a cheap cost. The higher fixed carbon content leads to the

production to a high-quality solid residue which can be used as activated carbon in wastewater

treatment. Coconut shell can be easily collected in places where coconut meat is traditionally

used in food processing. It can be used to create bowls, utensils and handicrafts, also as bodies

for some musical instruments or caves for aquariums and even in exfoliating products when

ground.

A cup of raw coconut flesh contains 283 calories, most of which come from its 26.8

grams of fat. While most plant foods contain very little saturated fat, coconut meat contains a

large amount, with 23.8 grams per cup. However, unlike other saturated fats, which are long

chain fatty acids, most of the fat in coconut is a medium chain fatty acid. Medium chain fatty

acids are broken down much faster than long chain fatty acids, so they do not contribute to high

cholesterol, as long chain fatty acids do.

 Coconut meat is high in the trace mineral manganese, with one cup providing 67 percent

of the recommended daily amount for women and 52 percent for men. Manganese helps you

metabolize both fat and protein. It also supports both the immune and nervous systems and

promotes stable blood sugar levels. Manganese also helps your body use other nutrients such as

iron, thiamine and vitamin E.

Coconut meat provides a significant amount of two other minerals: potassium and

copper. One cup provides 14 percent of the recommended amount of potassium and 39 percent

of copper. Potassium, along with sodium, is essential for proper fluid balance within your cells.

It is also necessary for proper heart function and muscle growth. Copper is important for the

production of red blood cells and assists with your sense of taste.

Products extracted from coconut meat are coconut oil, coconut milk, toddy and nectar,

copra, coconut sap that can also be yield to meera, palm wine (when fermented), sweet syrup or

candy and coconut sugar or palm sugar.

Consumed as a refreshing drink and is gaining popularity as a sports drink among athletes

can be used to produce nata de coco (a jelly-like food), coconut wine also coconut vinegar (when

fermented).
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The Philippine coconut industry’s roots can be traced back to the Spanish colonial

period. Through a gubernatorial edict in 1642, the Spaniards forced our ancestors to plant

coconut because they needed the fiber for their galleons. They also traded copra for the

manufacture of various products such as soap and margarine. In 1898, copra export comprised

five percent (5%) of the total commodity export of the Philippines.

The coconut is the country’s top export commodity making it its top dollar earner among

other agricultural exports. Earnings from the coconut industry ranked higher compared to other

agricultural commodities averaging US $ 1.58 billion from 2009 to 2011. Coconut oil (CNO)

tops the list of exports with around 1.3 million metric tons produced in 2010. Desiccated coconut

and copra meal are the two other highest ranked export commodities.

Young coconuts, also known as “ma-prao orn”, are encased with a uniquely shaped

greenish shell. The young coconut is harvested directly from the tree before it has time to age.

There are different kinds of young coconuts which is hard to distinguish because the shape and

size of it has almost the exact size and color.

Coconuts can be consumed on its 7 months old to its 10 months, until then when they

fully mature and fall naturally from the tree. Whereas in this case follows the study of young

coconuts ages 7 – 10 months old that has a different characteristic than the mature ones. The 7 –

8 months tend to have a softer meat inside of the young coconut which is commonly sells in
mixing it with the coconut juice, it tends to have a full of water inside. And while the 9 – 10

months has a much firmer meat inside the coconut, it is sometimes used in salads because of its

hard texture. The juice on a 9 – 10 months old coconut is much lesser than the younger ones.

In when it comes to extracting the juice and meat of the young coconut requires a set of

tools preferably a serrated knife to shave off the husk around the top of the coconut until you hit

the shell. Then when taking off the heel it is necessary to have a large knife to firmly break

through the shell. A person working at such a labor-intensive job especially when inexperienced

may lead to injuries and scars in doing so. Also, some of the vendors do not really distinguish

whether what age a young coconut is, the meat of it tends to harden when it ages a little older

than the young and fresh.

Almost all of the vendors opinion in the matter, they manually cut off the husk and

shells off the coconut to get its desired product, but in doing so requires a lot of experience

and set of skills to fully master it and limit the damages and mess it causes. It would almost take

years to practice on cutting such a hard exterior of a young coconut that they are now

accustomed to its traditional way of work. And we also discussed the types of young coconuts

and how they would know if it has a soft or hard meat inside of it. Some of the ones we

interviewed said that they knock the shell and hear if has a loud or not to know the water level

the coconut has. But other sources said that it depends on the texture and color of a coconut to

tell if it is young or aged, so this concludes us that in many cases it is basically chance they rely

on when distinguishing its meat.

 Moreover, preoccupation with primary production limits the farmers’ ability to profit

from coconut intercropping. To obtain better prices for their farm produce and leverage their

position in the market place, the coconut farmers should cluster themselves into coops or

producers’ groups and link themselves to food processors who will receive their products and/or

establish connections to the modern trade supply chains.

The topic of this research “Automated Scraping and Sorting Machine for Young Coconut

Juice and Meat”. It wants to implement on identifying the soft and firm meat is based on whether

the coconut has a lot of juice inside of it or not. The idea of determining the water level base on

each young coconut it inputs varies on what stage of age the coconut is at, is the method of the

system will be implementing. When all of it is initiated, on the side of extracting its juice and

comes with the alteration of breaking the coconut open and having a device that peels off the

meat and juice automatically then sorting it out to produce a separated coconut juice, the soft

meat and the firm meat.

This project aims to execute multiple stages of processing a young coconut but only has a

main goal to bring out its produce and easily segregate with this machine.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

General Objective:

The general objective of this study is to make an automated machine for scraping and sorting

of a young coconut juice, endosperm for soft and firm texture using a microcontroller that will

able to read inputs and turn it into an output publishing system.

Specific Objectives:

This study pursued the following specific objectives:

 To design a system that will classify and segregate young coconut juice, soft and firm
endosperm without cracking it in half using a water level indicator.

 To design a system that will automatically scrape the endosperm of a young coconut.

 To produce a product that continuously done by a machine using Arduino and Raspberry
Pi.
Significance of the Study

The Supplier

The beneficiaries of the output project in this study are the coconut supplier not just by delivering

the whole coconut to a factory, but also for them to supply an added idea using automated machine

to produce a separated juice and endosperm of a coconut. The result of this study helps them

realized that to gain more clients in the factories or business related in coconut they must have a

product to supply to satisfy the buyer.

Businesses

Coconut business nowadays is abundant due to many health benefits to a human, it is also a

refreshing drink for everyone if they want a juice or mix with endosperm of a young coconut; Our

Automated Machine can help a business in time efficiency for their employees do a task easily

when preparing a refreshing drink to their customer.

 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

PROCESS: Arduino
INPUT: Water level
OUTPUT:
- Water level monitoring
system through LCD - Segregated juice and
-puncture the top of a young display endosperm (soft or firm
coconut to determine the texture) of a young
water level. - Automated Juice coconut.
suction for young
coconut

- Automated scraping
tool for endosperm of a
young coconut.
1.5 SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS

This section discusses the project's intended scope as well as its boundaries and constraints in

the proposed implementation. The project shall cover the following:

 This project focuses on giving emphasis to distinguishing the soft and firm meat of the

young coconut doing.

 The system also includes on the method of water leveling the amount of juice inside of

the coconut to identify its maturity.

 The overall produce that the prototype will output is the segregated juice, soft and hard

meat of the young coconut.

However, the project is limited to the following constraints:

 The system will optimize on using the young green coconuts which are the ages between

7 – 10 months old specifically.

 The prototype criteria for segregating is bound by the softness and hardness of the meat

of the young coconut.