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Screenshot by Michelle Starr/CNET
If you’ve ever felt cheated that, upon pushing the button, no bacon materialised, then a device invented by a team of hackers will be right up your alley. Team Rabbit Hole, competing in Deconstruction, has built a machine that does indeed deliver delicious cured pork at the push of a button.
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Well, sort of. There are a few more steps involved. The machine is made from a repurposed laser jet printer. More specifically, the drive train and fuser roller assembly — the latter of which heats up in order to pressure-bond the plastic of the toner — powdered ink — to the paper via a radiant heat lamp inside the hollow roller. (The other roller is the rubber backing roller.)
The button in question sets the rollers, well, rolling. For this particular device, the bacon then needs to be fed into the rollers by hand, and the heat of the roller then cooks the bacon.
“It said it could get up to 350F, but when we probed it, it measured higher than the max of the thermometer, which was 450F,” said Rabbit Hole’s Addie.
The device could use a bit of tweaking; perhaps an integrated bacon feeder so that human input into the process is minimised; and, of course, the best bacon is bacon that shatters like a crysknife — so a higher temperature setting would be a welcome addition.
That said, an automatic bacon dispenser would be a pretty amazing addition to any kitchen. Who wants to start a Change.org for a Kickstarter?
Check it out in the video below (bacon dispensing occurs at 2:23), where you can also see the teams other two projects (an Altoid tin infinity mirror and a skull-shaped fan array), and a longer, feature-length video here.
(Via Hackaday.)
