About this project
PancakeBot - The world's first pancake printer!
$460,584
2,074
The PancakeBot™ allows you to “print” out pancakes into just about any design you can imagine. It's easy, REALLY fun, and you don’t need an art degree (or a culinary one) to do it!
Designed to inspire, entertain, and bring out the creativity in both young and old at home, the PancakeBot is also a product with commercial durability to help your brand make a lasting impression and draw in more customers.
From the whimsical dream of Miguel Valenzuela to make a pancake machine out of LEGO for his two daughters, the PancakeBot has evolved into a complete patent pending product capable of creating pancakes like never before.
Our included user-friendly software allows you to design your own pancake by tracing any image right on your computer. From your favorite piece of art or character, a child's drawing, a product image or your company or team logo, the software creates the file and the PancakeBot does the rest. As the artist, you control what lines are drawn first, which in turn lets you determine the shading of the pancake.
Once you have traced the image, the files can be stored on an SD card allowing you to print the designs you have created at anytime without having to ever re-trace the image.
The PancakeBot uses a patent pending batter dispensing system to "print" the batter onto the included griddle. By using a combination of compressed air and a vacuum, the PancakeBot controls where the batter is dispensed. Onboard controls let you fine tune the dispensing of the batter as it glides over the griddle.
You can even incorporate color into your PancakeBot creations by simply adding food coloring to the batter.
For family and friends
PancakeBot aims to inspire both young and old to create and have fun with their food as well as develop interests in engineering, art, programming and food manufacturing through the use of technology.
So go ahead and impress your family and friends by printing out their favorite character, animal, team logo or design. Let your imagination run wild and create pancakes almost too good to eat!
For your customers
The PancakeBot is perfect for trade shows, cafes, restaurants, breakfast buffets, parties and anywhere else you want your customers to remember you. Let the PancakeBot make a lasting impression for your business by creating pancakes that make your customers feel special. Be unique and differentiate your brand with the PancakeBot.
DIGITAL TRENDS: "..be warned — it’ll make your freehand pancake art pale in comparison."
WIRED: “It is exactly as cool as it sounds. I am a pancake fiend, so mixing the art of making with cooking pancakes is a double win for me.”
3DPRINT: “Talk about wowing the crowd at the breakfast table — from the Eiffel Tower to animal shapes and famous faces — this is a 3D printer that everyone can enjoy.”
3DERS: "With such a tantalizing product, you can't help but applaud Valenzuela's entrepreneurship. After all, demand for awesome pancakes will never falter."
Includes everything you need to get cooking including commercial quality non-stick griddle!
- Simple to use interface & screen to select image
- SD card slot for your custom designs
- Batter flow pressure control
- Print while the griddle is off or completely removed
- Pause/resume printing
- Easy to clean
- Removable griddle
- BPA free
- User manual with batter recipes
- Collapsible for storage
- Mac and Windows compatible software
- Access to video tutorials and downloadable files ready for printing
- Approx. print size 16.0" x 8.3" (430mm x 210mm)
PancakeBot started off as a whimsical dream of Miguel Valenzuela to make a “Pancake Machine” out of LEGO for his two daughters who were 1 and 3. One day, while reading Make magazine, Lily, Miguel’s oldest daughter asked him what he was reading. He replied, “I am reading about a guy that made a pancake stamping machine out of LEGO.” Instantly Lily turned to her little sister Maia and said, “Papa’s going to build a Pancake Machine out of LEGO!” and thus PancakeBot was born.
Miguel worked on developing and improving various LEGO designs and printed his first successful pancakes after 6 months of development. The PancakeBot was first reveled to the public at the World Maker Faire in New York. The response and interest from the public was so great that Miguel decided to build a more advanced version.
Fastforward to 2014, when Miguel developed a more advanced acrylic version that was shown at the San Mateo Maker Faire and also the White House Maker Faire. The new more advanced version of the PancakeBot received even more publicity and interest.
In order to bring PancakeBot to kitchens around the world, Miguel partnered with StoreBound, a company with the skills and expertise necessary to bring a refined version of the product to market by mid 2015.
Miguel Valenzuela is a husband, father, inventor and artist who daylights as a civil engineer. Currently living in Norway, he spends his time teaching kids about the maker movement, designing and building robots, and working with his daughters on new ideas.
Shipping within United States is included in your pledge. For international backers, please refer to the table below for fees and how to add it to your pledge.
We are now offering our lovely Kickstarter backers a pack which includes a holder and 4 extra dispenser bottles for only $19 (msrp $29).
While a prototype has been developed for proof of concept, the funds raised will help us to:
- Tweak the mechanics for better accuracy
- Improve software interface
- Stylize the final design
- Manufacture tooling and production
- Complete Certifications - UL, FDA,
Inspiring
Since its inception, PancakeBot has been getting both kids and adults to smile, laugh, and enjoy both playing with and eating their food. Seen at Maker Faire's around the world, PancakeBot gets the young and old at heart to think, talk about technology, explore design, and connect with food all at the same time.
Pancakes and robots
If you like Pancakes and Robots, you’ll love PancakeBot. PancakeBot is not just about making pancakes, it’s about inspiring people to play with their food and explore how technology and robotics can be used in our everyday lives. PancakeBot seeks to pave way for future products and advancements that encourage us to be creative.
Lastly, we would like to thank you for taking the time to view the PancakeBot™. We hope that you will back and share this project!
Risks and challenges
Usability
With any complicated machine, one risks that the interface and use may be complicated. In order to mitigate this risk, we are developing easy to use software and methods to make the PancakeBot intuitive and easy to use. We will also be developing instructional videos on best practices for drawing pancakes.
Batter Variations
There are many recipes for Pancake batter out there. Everything ranging from clumpy pancakes to gluten free. The main difference is typically batter viscosity. In order to address this, we have provided adjustments that allow you to change the air pressure in the dispenser to fine tune the dispensing of the batter.
We also provide a pancake recipe that has been used from the get-go which is a variation of Martha Stewarts Basic Pancake Recipe.
Warranty
We provide a warranty on all of our products shipped and sold into the USA. Since we are USA based with all of our infrastructure here, we don’t have the ability to take returns or offer warranty support in any foreign territories. We are working hard to find appropriate regional distributors who will bear the responsibility for service and support outside of North America.
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Funding period
- (35 days)