Last fall semester I had to do a senior design project in order to complete the requirements and get my degree in mechanical engineering. My group designed and built a talking toilet seat scale for the Ability Center of Greater Toledo. I built the webpage for our project. Check it out and let me know what you think!

http://www.mime.eng.utoledo.edu/design/ ... 008-04-01/

Here is a video of the project in action. It is pretty cool how it turns on as there is no "ON" switch, simply drop the seat.

Well, I have a few questions.

Number one question is; Does it update? Theoretically,ones weight should change before the ride comes to a complete stop. Maybe that should be number TWO question, huh?

What's with the "please wait" deal? Sorry, but there are plenty of times that if the seat says "please wait" it's going to get the response "Please go *&^( yourself!"

Also, one should be able to add to the "dialogue," It's functional as is, but a bit dry. Some nice additions to the banter could be to make it say things like:

"Holy %^&%, one at a time!", "Try again in ten minutes, because everyone knows you're full of...."

Maybe a couple of minutes into the foray, you could program it to say things like:

"Whoa Nelly- time for a courtesy flush!", or "Dear God, what did you EAT?"

Sorry, I had to have some fun with it- you knew someone would. I give you my own award for "most creative use of a load cell." "LOAD" cell- heheheheheh.

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ThrillNetwork Lead Moderator
My neighbor got a big new house, and all I got was his lousy payments

The reason it says "Please wait" is so that it can zero out the weight of the seat, plastic, and footrest that is already sitting on the load cells. If it didn't do this your weight reading would be 8 to 10 pounds heavier.

And yes there have been a lot of jokes about our project. "We got the "crappy" project." "Does it weigh you before and after?"

Dude, anytime you build something and it works- it's cool. I do that sort of thing for fun. I just had to have a bit of fun with the nature of your project.

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ThrillNetwork Lead Moderator
My neighbor got a big new house, and all I got was his lousy payments

I can tell you from experience that I can lose easily 5 pounds while on the toilet.

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YOUR HATRED AMUSES ME

^ This just in from the TMI desk...

Actually, I'm going to amend my statement from Post #4 Anytime you build something, it's cool. It's even more cool if it works.

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ThrillNetwork Lead Moderator
My neighbor got a big new house, and all I got was his lousy payments

Anytime you are doing a project that involves a toilet you can't be too serious about it. During our senior design expo we were joking that we should put a candy bar in the bowl, put a sign up that says "Non-functional toilet", or turn our booth into one of those guess your weight games.

The reason for incorporating a scale into a toilet seat is for people in wheelchairs or anyone who can't stand on a regular bathroom scale. Everybody has to go to the bathroom so why not weight them at the same time, that way they only have to get out of their wheelchair once. The talking feature was added for visually impaired users.

Funny you should mention that. A few months ago, there was a brand new toilet on the shelf in the shop at work that one of the other guys was supposed to install. He didn't get to it for several weeks. The first night I saw it sitting there, I looked at it, giggled, and went to the snack machine and bought a Baby Ruth.

You can figure the rest. The best part was I only told one person, and let everyone else find it on their own.

Industrial grade toilet: 250 dollars.

Baby Ruth candy bar: 75 cents.

Seeing the reactions of people when they noticed it for the first time: priceless.

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ThrillNetwork Lead Moderator
My neighbor got a big new house, and all I got was his lousy payments