The extension works with a wifi-enabled scale attached to the bottom of the NimbleUser coffee dispensers. The extension displays the volume of coffee in each dispenser as an icon in the Chrome address bar
“Coffee outages are disruptive,” said Chief Coffee Officer, Sig Vandamme. “We do have a five-step disaster recovery plan in place for when we run out of coffee, and this extension covers the use case of running behind on our brew cycle.”
How to Survive if We Run Out of Coffee
If you find yourself in the kitchen and realize you drew the short stick because the coffee is gone – I’m mean really, really gone, as in, there are no beans: Do not panic!
Breath deeply and follow the Work Instructions.
Work Instructions:
- Ping the Chief Coffee Officer (Sig) that we are in need of coffee beans, and that the emergency protocol is engaged.
- If the need is dire, you are authorized to make a run to Finger Lakes Roasters to pick up two pounds of bold coffee beans to tide us over.
- To place a regular order, please contact our preferred vendor: Dalai Java (ask for Ben), 246 South Main Street, Canandaigua NY, Phone: (585) 394-2065, Hours: 6:30 AM – 5:00 PM.
- Our standard order is eight kilos of Peruvian or Brazilan. Exercise your own judgment based on availability. If you are going to pick it up, call ahead to be sure the beans are ready, as fresh roasting can take until the next day. (See Step 2.)
- If you are grinding beans and notice we are on the last bag, ping the CCO, who will spring into action and save us all from “coffee panic.”
The new Chrome extension is available in the Chrome Webstore. The source code is also available on GitHub for your forking convenience.
The extension is the first increment of an agile Continuous Coffee Delivery system (CCD). The next increment — scheduled for Winter ’17 — is to include a drone to deliver the canister to your desk.
“Delivering an empty canister would have been disappointing,” explains Simonis, “so we started with readiness tracking.”
In the third stage, the CCD system is to include a robotic grinder, and a second drone to shuttle the coffee from nearby Canandaigua.
The stretch goal for Summer’ 17 is a liquid nitrogen adapter to flash cool the coffee, for year-round goodness.
