A Lego robot that can make you Micky Mouse shaped pancakes (w/ video)
July 1, 2011 by Katie Gatto 
(PhysOrg.com) -- Robotics is a serious science, but like all of the most serious things in this world it does have a fun side too. Sometimes a robot, with all of its advanced equipment and the intense hours of programming involved, comes along and it does something that is so silly and so darn entertaining that you just have to sit back, watch the video and laugh. When a robot begins making you Micky Mouse shaped pancakes you can begin to suspect that you are experiencing one of those moments. When that robot is made of Lego's then you can be sure that you are in one of those situations.
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Of course, this bot can do more than just the icon of a children's toy corporation, it can make any shape that you can programming it to, provided that it fits onto the griddle. The pancake cooking bot is in reality a 3-axis CNC-made robot, designed by Mexican Viking. The machine uses the Z coordinate to control where the batter is released. The robot was originally coded in Python NXT but had to be changed due to unnamed complications with the use of the language in this application. Mexican Viking changed it to the LEGO Mindstorms programming language. This programming language then creates the image using a text files with three coordinates that tell the machine where to move and when to dump the batter.The machine cannot be bought commercially and it is not going to be on sale in the near future. If you want to make one of your own you can use the directions on Mexican Viking's website to create one for yourself.
© 2010 PhysOrg.com
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