FormHacks 2026
FormCakes
Pancakes via injection molding.
Background
I did this project in 24 hours with two of my friends, James (my roommate) and John (also known as IBuildStuff on YouTube). The goal was to create a machine that could inject pancake batter into a mold, heat the mold, and the eject the pancake onto a plate.
For the mold, we decided to use a 3D benchy, which I quickly modeled in Onshape with lofted walls and simplified geometry. It unfortunately turned out that we couldn't print the mold from ceramic resin as originally planned, so I had to machine an aluminum one at the very last minute. I did this on the VF2, and it was my first introduction to 3D adaptive pathing.
The rest of the machine came together with lead screws, stepper motors, a relay to switch 120V AC to ceramic heaters, and a solenoid which directed an air jet that ejected the pancake. We had to do a lot of tuning to get the right amount of batter and the right heating time, but amazingly, it actually worked.
Gallery
