Printcakes: Pancake Printer

An arduino powered machine that takes a user-input image and prints it as a delicious buttermilk pancake.

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Have you ever looked down at your plate of uneven, mostly round pancakes and wondered why they couldn't be a little more spectacular and add a little thrill to your life? Have you ever watched a pancake art video only to shake your head in dismay because you lack the artistic skills to reproduce such creativity?

Fear not, for Printcakes the pancake printer is here!

What it does

Printcakes is a pancake printer that accepts user image inputs via a desktop interface or Android application and then prints a pancake. The two input methods supports 2 shades when printing pancakes.The printer will print the darker colors first, followed by the lighter colours. The application interfaces can be found above in the project image gallery. For those artistically challenged, it may be possible to select pre-programmed pancake designs ensuring fluffy buttermilk pancakes for all.

The build

Printcakes was inspired into existence prior to the hackathon. Thus, our team had sufficient time to gather the necessary pre-cut materials. Printer rails were salvaged off of old printers and used as the main motor tracks. All materials excluding the electric griddle were recycled materials recovered from old projects. We used recycled wood beams, wood planks, cardboard, plastic bottles, wires, LED lights, among the other recycled materials. It was decided that the motorized unit would be detachable from the electric griddle so that the griddle can be efficiently repurposed for other means.

The team

Our trio recently reunited specifically for this hackathon. Our team met in high school over half a decade ago but have since headed our separate ways to pursue our careers. We have:

  • Timothy Lock on Front End
  • Bryan Wong on Firmware Back End
  • Jessica Ip on Back End/Electrical Engineer

What's next for Printcakes: Pancake Printer

The possibilities are endless but the areas of improvement we are focusing on next include:

  • Smooth android interfacing functionality
  • Multiple color and shade support
  • More pre-programmed images
  • Improvements in portability of machine and branding
  • Improvements in consistency and accuracy of the nozzle

You batter come by and check us out!

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