Breadboard (HackNotts 3)

Using a modified toaster we are able to draw images onto bread.

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Inspiration

Throughout history many great artists have worked with novel materials. As budding great artists of the 21st century, we thought to continue this tradition via the medium of toast.

What it does

Using state-of-the art toasting technology we are able to brand custom images into bread.

How we built it

By disassembling the toaster we were able to deconstruct one of the elements, turning it into a line of individually togglable pixels. We have a crane to raise the bread during the printing process, so we can construct the image one line at a time.

The images were ingested on a laptop, reduced down to the 8 by 8 pixel resolution of the toaster, and sent the printing commands over serial to a microcontroller, using our custom patent pending b-code op-code format.

Challenges we ran into

The primary challenge was ensuring we were relatively safe while working, as the toaster uses mains AC, and many components get very hot.

Ensuring the elements were close enough to the bread to quickly leave a mark, without getting caught and misshapen was a reoccurring difficulty.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

No one was harmed in the making of this project.

What we learned

Lightly pre-toasting the bread is good for its structural integrity.

What's next for Breadboard (HackNotts 3)

Our project is going to be the basis of the next unicorn startup; Please send all venture capital investment to our hardware partner, the British Heart Foundation/donate/your-donation/get-started).

Videos

Testing the elements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22L1PVdHhaY

Testing the crane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaHBKrnlWaE

Team bread lifting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6EDt4wCtCc

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