DIY Robot Cuts Crusts Off, Makes the Perfect Sandwich

The next best thing since sliced bread is officially here: the automated crust cutter.

It's effectively a mini robotic guillotine that whacks down on innocent bread slices to separate the dry crusts from the inner delightful gooey-ness of the bread part.

Created as a DIY project by YouTuber, 3DprintedLife, or Andrew DeGonge, it involved a good amount of computing, engineering, and fun to put together.

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Slicing bread crusts off isn't a particularly arduous task, but like most technology and life hacks, laziness is a strong reason for inventing a new creation. This crust slicer embodies that motto. 

Although, there was nothing lazy about how DeGonge put his contraption together. 

The machine is made up of an aluminum frame made up of 3D-printed parts that all shift around a cutting board thanks to belts and stepper motors. The pièce de résistance is the kitchen knife that comes down on command, chopping away all unnecessary parts of the bread slice. 

DeGonge used a Raspberry pi 4 Model B and paired it with a Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2, using OpenCV to automatically photograph and analyze the sandwich breach placed onto the robot’s cutting board. The system then figures out its shape by calculating the largest rectangle to create, and then the knife drops down four times cutting into the spinning sandwich that's going around on a turntable. Then, all four crust sides are removed. 

It's not quite perfect, though, as the pieces of bread need to be yanked off the main section. It seems the knife doesn't come cutting down in as strong a motion as a human arm. 

Regardless, it's pretty neat and would certainly have worked for Walter in Breaking Bad, who made a number of crustless-sandwiches for himself, Krazy-8, and when he worked for Gustavo. 

Watch the sandwich assistant machine come to life below: