A pancake-making robot went on sale last week after years of development.
The Pancakebot is now available for $299 from their website in either black or red. The bot is basically a 3D printer combined with a griddle. The tabletop bot can be programmed to print all sorts of pancakes to look like practically any image.
Miguel Valenzuela, who invented the friendly bot, said his kids were his inspiration.
"It’s a project I did for my kids to get them inspired," he told 3D Printing Industry. "It’s a family project. My daughter Lily asked, ‘What are you doing, Dad?’ and I said I was reading about a guy who made a pancake stamping machine out of LEGOs."
"Her eyes opened up really big, and she turned to Maya, her sister, and yelled, ‘Papa’s going to build a pancake machine out of LEGOs!’"
Once video of Valenzuela's LEGO prototype went viral and was featured at a White House event he decided to look into building a commercial version of the bot. He turned to Kickstarter to crowdfund the effort and ended up with over 1000 backers. He has big hopes for his creation.
Valenzuela said he hopes his bot will unlock people's pancake-based creativity.
"Now, what we’re doing is we’re putting a computer system and machine into the kitchen and you can tell it what to do," he told the publication. "You’re the artist now. We’re looking into allowing the user to hack it. They can upload their own programs to it, and draw out custom shapes. It would be nice to see it at places like Disneyland, resorts, hotels."
At press time, the Washington Free Beacon had not yet obtained a Pancakebot despite a survey indicating the staff believes pancakes are "great" and the office being overstocked with Diet Sunkist, suggesting funds could be reallocated toward a pancake-making robot.