So often, we see 3D printers used to create some nifty little tool for a tricky little job. Maybe it’s to lock cams together for a timing belt change, or to work as a jig for soldering some complex device. However, some hacks are even simpler than that. [maker_guy] realized that eating nuggets in the car could be easier than ever with a little printed adapter.
The print is simple. It’s a round caddy for the nugget sauces given out by Chick-fil-A restaurants. Why round? Because it lets the nugget sauce sit neatly in your car’s cupholder at an accessible height. Put the sauce tub in the adapter, peel it open, and you can dip to your heart’s content.
No more delicately balancing Zesty Buffalo by the gearstick while you try and chow down. Nor will your seat covers be tainted with Honey Mustard!
“Not a hack!” you scream. “It’s frivolous nonsense!” To that I say, are you a nugget eater or not? I myself partake, and I can absolutely see the value in this. You see, us journalists work hard. We’re often stuck eating substandard food in our cars on the way from one thing to another, like so many others in busy professions. If a smart little 3D-printed adapter can make mealtime easier and save some mess, I’m calling that a win.
You should never be afraid to use your creativity to make tools to improve your life. Parts are on Thingiverse if you need to print your own. Mod it to suit McDonald’s product if you need. Heck, print in black and it’d look like a stock part of the car!
You don’t have to like this simple adapter, but you can’t deny its utility! Share your own nifty little adapter ideas in the comments.
Neat idea. I like. Chick-fil-A is the best! As for eating in car. Do that a lot when being ‘driven’ from the airport when we arrive by one of our kids. Usually first stop is Chick-fil-A after a long flight.
This is an interesting idea but in reality it has nothing on the saucemoto. It is one of the best gifts I have ever received.
How does one remove it ? It looks pretty flush. I assume you won’t get all the sauce out. Sticking your finger in the tub is therefore a bad solution.
Good point, maybe a handle on it for those rare times you’re not eating nuggets.
It is probably not as flush as it looks. Second answer is finger nails.
As About 3 out of five trys, the foil top rips. So maybe pull out by the shredded top? I’d be in the use your nails camp, but we can always keep a backup plan in mind, right?
Now, whadda ya do about the sauce stringing out onto your console?
I’ve pretty much become a “only raid the fries” sort of driver though. Gotta snag those fries while they’re hot!
Pull the entire adapter out and poke from the bottom.
You’re right – needs a little indent on one side so you can get a finger under the tub.
Open containers of any kind are a safety problem for the driver that I have to share the road with.
Single use plastic instead of a bottle of that sauce when done over and over? The bottle can be recycled the sauce trays cannot. They should have to dollop the food to your order to serve it no extra trash at all. Paper wrapper cardboard tray no foam.
I would argue that animals in the car, or other people talking to driver or cell phones, even when only glanced at or just making sounds are 10x more of a safety issue than an open container.
In the name of environmental activism, there should be no farming of any kind. You should only be allowed to eat what you grow without the use of chemicals, including oil-based products. Actually, we should all stop breathing because we’re stealing oxygen from the animals. You must be fun at parties.
Pretty sure that sauce tray could be recycled in the UK. But we’re not allowed chick-fil-a.
But neat idea to make use of the cup holder and to make something otherwise impossible to use in the car workable.
The majority of plastic sadly isn’t recycled anywhere in the world, due to the expense and stringent sorting requirements☹️
Worked in plastic recovery.
It just gets shredded to burn for electricity, or to create cinders for things like concrete plants to use.
I agree with you to some extent but as others have mentioned, we have far worse problems. Until every single person who uses their phone while driving has their drivers license permanently revoked (or their car insurance rate raised to the point where it exceeds the cost of a typical house mortgage) I am more or less OK with people dipping food in sauce that is held by this handy device while driving…
Given that most cars from the past decade have Bluetooth, and, for the last few years, CarPlay/Android Auto, you would think that the incident count for that sort of thing would be way down by now, and should only continue to drop. I haven’t actually seen anyone using a phone on the road for a while now.
As for the dip cup holder, grabbing oily nuggets from a bag, properly aiming them into the cup, then shoving them into your mouth ad infinitum doesn’t exactly sound like much less of a distraction from the road than talking on a phone.
Neither one is safe, and it’s not like we only get to choose one of the two to crack down on, so your argument is a bit of a false binary.
If you’re going to eat in the car, it should be something that only involves a single motion, like shoving fries in your mouth. If it has to be nuggets, skip the dipping while you’re driving, it’s just an accident waiting to happen.
And let’s all hope there aren’t any idiots out there now inspired to dip nuggets while texting and driving😰
That’s probably because you’re looking straight ahead. As a former chauffeur, bus driver and someone who makes frequent trips from Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico, I can assure you that there are still plenty of people with their phones in their hands and their eyes on their phones instead of the road. No one thinks it’ll happen to them until it does.
Having regularly drive, or being driven up both the east and west coast I can assure you the not seeing folks on their phones is a function of your driving habits (tunnel vision or mental filtering), not theirs, because they are out there. In their hands. On speakerphone. Looking at their laps.
Not really a false binary as you could probably prove that statistically, fewer accidents are caused by nugget dipping than cell phone usage.
Playing the “If you are going to do anything do the thing I think is slightly more safe but objectively less safe than doing the correct thing” card is a losers game.
I was a professional driver until recently, spending 7-8hrs/day on the road.
Phones in hands and on heads is very much still a frequent issue, even when the drivers are in cars that support Bluetooth, Android Auto or Apple Carplay.
It is now at the point where my country is trialling special cameras to identify and prosecute these drivers.
A $400-$900 fine depending on state has done little to deter these people in the past.
Now you need a steering wheel cover to keep from getting it all greasy.
Someone needs to create a disposable paper towel steering wheel cover👍
It’s called a shower cap.
Perhaps a universal version with Chick-fil-A on one side, and McDonalds on the other. Flip it over for either application.
A Taco / Chalupa golding device would be good also.
Reddit link from 5 years ago… necro post much? surely you could have found something newer to highlight the same level of ingenuity?
necro post?
it’s a klepto necro post.
At least it’s not a nympho post.
Nope, I couldn’t. This was a great piece of creativity and I’m glad to be featuring it here.
Are you asking the author to acknowledge that this is 5 years old, or just complaining that you learned something new 5 years later?
Wait, or are you are asking them to find someone to have done this more recently so you can come and say this was done 5 years ago?
Every fastfood chain here in the Netherlands recently moved to little bags of sauce instead of these kinds of containers. Makes for a real mess, and you can never squir the sauce down anywhere because you don’t get your food on a plate. I wonder if someone has come up with one of these for those packets!
Doing gods work
Slow day at HaD, it seems.
At my previous job I ate in my lunch in my car. (Filthy workplace)
I was thinking of making a holder for my cell phone that would allow me to attach it to the steering wheel to so I could use the touchscreen with one hand and eat with the other.
Bike phone mounts work. Unfortunately they’re normally screw clamps instead of temporary spring clamps, though.
Thanks, I might have one out in the garage!
You could also just take a beverage cup and fill it with the sauce. Maybe rip off the top half so the cup is not that full.
Been doing that since forever but I also have a really high consumption on sauces.
Balancing a small box of sauce is not that difficult anyways as you only need one hand for driving cars with automatic transmission. The rest is training.
How about people just focus on driving ? (and not the myriad distractions that every nitwit consumer, dashboard designer, and other assorted miscreants – seem to deliberately create to diminish safety). Too bad we don’t hold drivers to the same standards of Part 121 (USA) FAA commercial pilot regulations – including the “sterile cockpit” rule. Guaranteed highway accidents/fatalities would plummet overnight if that sort of rule was adopted.
So, when is the 3D printed five course meal adapter coming out? A gyro stabilized soup bowl will be necessary.
Soup *bowl*?
Nah, you get a modified insulated Camelbak with a quick-change function and much wider tube. A robotic arm will automatically keep the end of the tube at mouth height at all times during the dining experience.
You will slurp your fancy soup, and you will like it!
Controversial opinion, Popeyes crispy chicken sando is better than ChicphobA
But is it better than Chick-fil-A? I think phobA is a knock off restaurant, I’ve certainly never seen one.
I think ChicphobA is located (not based) in CA. The sandos are made of that stuff food eats, made by anti-workers suffering from hair dye leaching into their scalp.
i 3d printed this but now i need a Chick-fil-A—to—Wendy’s sauce cup coupler. the Sauce DRM adds a notch so it can’t be used with competing restaurants. i demand open food laws!
I feel this comment missed the opportunity to make an “open sauce” gag.
comments are still open if you wanna take a shot at it!
And people are surprised when they get cancer
I’ve made one before that was a vacuum formed lid with sauce pocket for the drinks. if you offset the straw location there’s enough space for you to stick the sauce packet in the cup lid, which means there’s no additional waste or cupholder needed.
They weren’t interested at the time, but I wonder if they would be now.
Since this patent US20040094587A1 expired a year ago, I would have expected an explosion of integrated sauce holders to be standard equipment :)
I eat at my table at home, in the car I drive.
In the odd occasion I have to eat in my car, I do so when it is parked, or at a table in the fast food restaurant.
There is absolutely no need to be eating while driving.
I take calls at my home or my work, they have phones. In the car I drive.
There is absolutely no need for a cell phone.