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
This was the first that came to my mind
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KVdqwD_bcPs
real engineers perfected it a century ago. commercial machine has 4 parts and breaks perfect every time. https://www.egg-machine.com/egg-equipment/egg-breaking-machine.html
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;)
And what’s with using two hands?
My kids could do it single handed by about 12 years old (as soon as the hands were big enough). To be fair, I humiliated them when they used two hands. Got to give them some trauma to resent, or they’ll never leave home.
No. Cracking it on the edge of a bowl can push portions of shell into the egg, contaminating it. Instead, you should crack the egg on a flat surface, then open it.
unless you intend to consume the egg raw, it doesnt really matter if there is a bit of contact with the outer shell.
Sounds pathological… I’m gonna go out on a limb and proclaim with no evidence that the number of people harmed by this are easily within the error margin of zero.
Also the chance of getting salmonella from raw eggs is ~0 as well.
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
Here another fan of “stuff made here”.
More people wondering “why dropping the shell in the bowl with the egg?”, “why the waste of food?”
In my mind, I use a laser to make a tiny hole in the egg,put a vacum hose and collect everything…then I use pump hose to add chocolate and let it stay in the freezer…later i use a drillbit to produce chocolate dust to eat…then I use… but that just me being me.
The suction cups by themselves would work just fine, two suction cup sticks. Just something to manipulate the egg from a slight distance.
How much is a pack of eggs these days?
Last time I’ve checked it was 6 eggs in a pack.
Oh wow, small packs. Standard packs here are 12 eggs. The packs I buy have 30 large eggs. Usually buy two packs at a time. The grocery store across the street closed so I don’t want to travel every other day to buy eggs. 60 eggs is fine for 2 weeks. It’s my main source of protein.
I paid $13.22 for a box of 60 eggs this week
If you want to see how it is done on the super industrial scale, then watch this short film from French TV shot in an absolutely massive egg factory in Latvia. Voice-over is only in French, sorry, but the employee interviewed at the end talks English and you can just about hear him underneath.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd3nHRKBtLo
Eggs are neat. They are structurally resilient – yet not – and each one is different.
He’s not inventing something new. I just saw this video of a Japanese egg cracker. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-3dc7jV7cls
Just in time for some from the Purdue engineering community living in Lafayette, we can have home poultry hens now. Eggs! Opportunities for coop accoutrements and defenses, all legalized now.