University of Chicago Laboratory School InvenTeam

• The InvenTeam originally set out to design an automatic pancake maker, but changed the design concept because of the high cost of the appliance. • The invention includes an off-the-shelf blender that is connected it to a microcontroller, a single-purpose processing unit designed to execute small control programs in real time, which allows the user to turn on and off the blender by email and text messages. • During the InvenTeams showcase, a Troy High School InvenTeam student’s sister, in California, remotely turned on the blender using the online system.