SauceBot Uses G-Code To Apply Condiments With Precision

You just can’t please some people. Take a 3D-printer disguised as a condiment dispenser to a public event and next thing you know people actually expect you to build a 3D-condiment dispenser for the next time. How can you help but oblige?

We have to admit to more than a little alarm when [ShaneR] sent us this tip, as on first reading it seemed to endorse the culinary sin of putting ketchup on barbecue. But then we watched the video below and realized this dispenser is only applying ketchup and mustard to hot dogs, and while some purists would quibble with the ketchup, we’ll let that slide. The applicator, dubbed SauceBot by the crew at Connected Community HackerSpace in Melbourne, appears to be purpose-built entirely from laser-cut acrylic, including the twin peristaltic pumps for extruding the ketchup and mustard. We’re not sure the Z-axis is entirely necessary for dispensing onto hot dogs, but since this was a community outreach event, it makes sense to go all in. The video below shows it in use at a fundraiser, and while the novelty of it probably sold quite a few dogs, it’s safe to say the food service industry won’t be alarmed that this particular robot will be stealing jobs anytime soon.

Seriously, if your hackerspace is going to have public events with food, something like this could really get the conversation started. Then again, so might a CD execution chamber.

28 thoughts on “SauceBot Uses G-Code To Apply Condiments With Precision

  1. Clearly a device needed on the space station. A bit more research, some AI and cameras to decide what the said enhancements are being applied to and you have the perfect fast food faster than humanly possible with no risk of mustard in the space station electronics.

    Next step is obviously a vacuum friendly BBQ.

  2. Great stuff to add to my collection and of special interest since I was lucky with distinction in food chemistry 2010 as part of post grad food science with wide electronic engineering control systems experience across decades. There are so many tantalising production possibilities in mass market too, though best start with desktop versions like this. Health and nutrition issues also worthy of analysing quantitatively as once you know the formulation for each sauce you can produce a receipt or downloaded into your phone with far more precise nutritional data than generally available and tailored to the consumer’s genetics and dynamic health status eg variance in diabetes pattern etc. Thanks for post, thought provoking along augmentation lines too, cheers :-)

    Btw: Next step might be to extrude the main meat proteins in any shape you like to delight the kids at least regardless of where the protein comes from and irrespective of appropriate dyes ;-)

    1. Yep, It’s from Australia so it’s tomato sauce (doesn’t have any vinegar in it).

      The odd thing is that Dan is from Australia to lol.

      Perhaps no one told Dan that ketchup has vinegar in it and really doesn’t taste like tomato sauce.

  3. Some corrections : They are beef sausages, they were cooked on a BBQ, and it is tomato sauce, and mustard sauce being applied. Not hot dogs, and not ketchup. That’s just the way we do things in Australia.

      1. It’s not a hot dog. This is the traditional Australian sausage sandwich, made with a cheap sausage, onion, tomato/barbeque sauce or mustard on a single slice of bread. Mandatory sausage sizzles are performed every weekend outside hardware stores and at every self-respecting polling location on election day.

      2. Maybe they all went to the public health department to be reclassified since they don’t fit into the category of bread, many buns have so much brain depleting mineral compounds esp macca’s, such as sugars they are classified as cake !
        They burn really well so if you run out of firewood go to the local bakery and they will be pleased to dump their unsold excess on you Or you can run a still for some moonshine ;-)

    1. In Australia a “hot dog” is a battered saveloy.

      Sausages are often called bangers or snags.

      A common fund raising snack is a slice of bread with cooked onions a sausage and tomato sauce and a tin of softdrink.

      In Merican that’s about a bun, hotdog, ketchup and soda.

  4. Oh em gee! God invented Hot Dog Buns for a reason you Neanderthals! My Grandma always told me to never trust a skinny chef, never believe a politician, and never ever EVER trust a mad scientist who puts the perfect sausage with the perfect application of condiments on plain white American bread!

  5. That’s not BBQ or a hot dog, it’s Democracy Sausage.

    See, in Australia where we still have a functioning democracy, ScoMo notwithstanding, voting is on Saturdays and you buy fundraising sausages from the local school that runs the polling booth.

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