Eggs are perhaps the most beloved staple of breakfast. However, they come with a flaw, they are incredibly messy to work with. Cracking in particular leaves egg on one’s hands and countertop, requiring frequent hand washing. This fundamental flaw of eggs inspired [Stuff Made Here] to fix it with an over-engineered egg cracking robot.
The machine works on the principle of scoring a line along an egg shell to weaken it, then gently tapping it to fracture the shell. A simple theory that proved complex to build into a machine. The first challenge was merely holding an egg as eggs come in all shapes and sizes. [Stuff Made Here] ended up settling on silicone over-molded with a 3D printed structure. After numerous prototypes, this evolved into including over-molded arms for added stiffness, and a vacuum seal for added rigidity.
After making two of these holders, [Stuff Made Here] added them to a roughly C shaped holder, which could spin the egg around, and slide the holders to allow fitting any egg shape. To this was added an arm which included a scoring blade and tiny hammer to crack the egg. The hammer can even be turned off while the blade is in use.

The mechanism runs off a sequence of score, hammer, dump, eject. It was attempted to run this sequence off a single crank, but ended up not working for a number of reasons, not least of which being some eggs required more scoring then others. Nonetheless, we love the mechanical computational mechanism used. Ultimately, while frivolous, the project provides a wonderful look at the highs and lows of the prototyping process with all its numerous broken eggs.
If you like over-engineered solutions to simple problems, [Stuff Made Here] has you covered. Make sure to check out this automatic postcard machine next!
People have been trying this for a long time:
https://youtu.be/RBJGpNTP_lY?list=RDRBJGpNTP_lY&t=93
What in the world are you doing when you crack an egg open? You hit it on the edge of the bowl, that’s it. That’s all you have to do;)
On itself, it’s not “over engineered”, but breaking eggs on an industrial scale has been a solved problem for many years.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=industrial+egg+breaking
I roll my eyes at this, I have cracked enough eggs I can do it one handed without getting it all over my fingers. But I watched every second of this cause, yea that guy is awesome