{"id":11536,"date":"2015-03-19T16:35:47","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T21:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=11536"},"modified":"2015-03-20T15:25:44","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T20:25:44","slug":"3d-printing-just-became-more-delicious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/3d-printing-just-became-more-delicious\/","title":{"rendered":"3D printing just became more delicious"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Lucy Vernasco<\/p>\n

3D printing is more delicious than ever. With more than 1,000 Kickstarter backers<\/a>, PancakeBot is the world\u2019s first 3D pancake printer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a project I did for my kids to get them inspired. It\u2019s a family project,\u201d Miguel Valenzuela said about his invention. Valenzuela is a civil engineer, inventor and father living in Norway.<\/p>\n

PancakeBot was first\u00a0prototyped as a\u00a0LEGO model before Valenzuela made it into the current machine.<\/p>\n

Launched in 2013, PancakeBot won\u2019t hit stores until mid 2015, but Kickstarter backers can get their own for half the anticipated retail\u00a0price by pledging $149 dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to dabble with 3D printing, especially since it was coming online with Makerbot,\u201d Valenzuela said. \u201cI learned how to program with LEGO code, pretty much spent six months making a pancake machine out of LEGOs. We posted the video on YouTube and then it went viral. It was all made out of LEGOs except for the ketchup bottle\u201d<\/p>\n

[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=f3Q8nbtRNT0&w=560&h=315]<\/p>\n

The idea originated with a question from Valenzuela\u2019s daughter as he was reading an article in Make Magazine<\/a> about prototyping with LEGO, Valenzuela said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter Lily asked, \u2018What are you doing, dad?\u2019 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, \u2018Papa\u2019s going to build a pancake machine out of LEGOs!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Valenzeula began bringing his PancakeBot LEGO prototype to Maker Faires including one at The White House. After partnering with StoreBound, he began a Kickstarter campaign in order to reach a wider audience and bring the project to stores later this year.\u00a0 PancakeBot, which comes with pre-loaded designs and an SD card for custom designs, lets users create pancakes in any pattern they can\u00a0dream of.<\/p>\n

And, yes, then you pour syrup on it and eat it. Valenzeula reveals more secrets about his Bot.<\/p>\n

How long does the process take?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It depends on the size of the pancake, of course. For a simple one it can trace something out in 45 seconds to a couple of minutes, the outline of it, and then it needs to come back to fill. You can do the fill by hand, or you can do the fill with PancakeBot. You’re looking at three to four minutes for a decent sized pancake with a custom design and logo on it.<\/p>\n

How does PancakeBot work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The way it works is that you import the image for\u00a0the background into the software. Then you have a window where you trace over the background. You trace lines. There are no curves, just lines. If you want to draw a circle, you draw a bunch of small lines. Once you draw your dark lines, you go back and you click a [15 second delay] into it. That allows the brown stuff to cook and get browner. Then you come back and do the fill. The fill fills it in with a lighter batter. Then you give it a flip and you have your image revealed to you. Every time you flip the pancake you don\u2019t know exactly what you\u2019re going to get, because you don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s cooked. The cool thing is the reveal. Like \u2018ooh look at that, it came out perfect.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"PancakeBot<\/a>
PancakeBot printing a butterfly pancake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can print layers, but it\u2019s very limited in the amount of layers it\u2019ll print. The main thing is that pancake batter is in this liquid form, so it\u2019s not like taking an apple and making it into liquid form and squirting it out. So there\u2019s a natal progression of going from pancake batter to pancake. That\u2019s what\u2019s really cool about this. For stuff that has the same viscosity as pancake batter and you can cook it, the sky\u2019s the limit on that. We use 3D printing technology and it uses the idea of food and cooking. It\u2019s the only printer out there that actually cooks food while it\u2019s being made. We went from LEGO to this.<\/p>\n

How do you hope people use Pancake Bot?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Number one, I hope people will make pancakes out of it. I don\u2019t want it to end there. I want people to look at what we\u2019ve created here as a tool for learning, a tool for exploration and a tool for inspiring kids to look at technology in a different way. Now what we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re putting a computer system and machine into the kitchen and you can tell it what to do. You\u2019re the artist now. We\u2019re 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 Disney Land, resorts, hotels.<\/p>\n

\"Completed<\/a>
Completed PancakeBot pancake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do you ever get tired of pancakes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The kids still love pancakes. They never get sick of them. I love pancakes too, so I think that shows a little bit. What the challenge is is challenging ourselves to come up with different designs and pushing ourselves to see what we can come up with and things like that.<\/p>\n

Have your kids been inspired from you invention?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Totally! Now my kids are inventing stuff and making things. They\u2019re playing with robotics and [are] interested in programming. The kids look at things differently now. They say, \u201cDad, can you build a robot for this?\u201d They\u2019re seeing now that technology can be used on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

This project would not have been possible without the Maker community, because this is one of the reasons we decided to do it, is to inspire kids to get involved with technology. The Maker community has been very awesome in helping us out.<\/p>\n

Photo at top: A butterfly pancake created by PancakeBot.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Lucy Vernasco 3D printing is more delicious than ever. With more than 1,000 Kickstarter backers, PancakeBot is the world\u2019s first 3D pancake printer. \u201cIt\u2019s a project I did for my kids to get them inspired. It\u2019s a family project,\u201d Miguel Valenzuela said about his invention. Valenzuela is a civil engineer, inventor and father living […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":11570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,27,28,29,243],"tags":[440,444,442,443,441,192],"class_list":["post-11536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-business","category-general-interest","category-health-and-science","category-winter-2015","tag-3d-printing","tag-kickstarter","tag-lego-prototypes","tag-pancakebot","tag-pancakes","tag-promo"],"yoast_head":"\n3D printing just became more delicious - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/3d-printing-just-became-more-delicious\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"3D printing just became more delicious - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By: Lucy Vernasco 3D printing is more delicious than ever. With more than 1,000 Kickstarter backers, PancakeBot is the world\u2019s first 3D pancake printer. \u201cIt\u2019s a project I did for my kids to get them inspired. It\u2019s a family project,\u201d Miguel Valenzuela said about his invention. 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