Someone created a Raspberry Pi-powered robot stir fry chef, and it went about as well as you'd expect

I think the end goal of any Raspberry Pi tinkerer is to have a house similar to the one in Wallace and Gromit. If you’ve never seen the movies before, Wallace is an inventor who designed robots to do common household chores for him. His inventions handle everything from getting out of bed to getting dressed and even making breakfast, and honestly, it’s a dream lifestyle.

Unfortunately, reality is a little more dangerous when it comes to handing important tasks to robots. Take, for example, this one YouTuber who put a Raspberry Pi in charge of cutting up vegetables, shoving them into a wok, and stir-frying them all by itself. And if that sounds like a nightmare, congratulations; you have a perfectly functional sense of judgement.

This Raspberry Pi stir-fry chef has a better chance of harming you than making dinner

On the Raspberry Pi subreddit, inventor SamMakes created an automatic stir-fry check using a Raspberry Pi. The premise was simple; the Pi first used a camera to identify what’s on the cutting board, then used a knife to slice it into pieces. Once the vegetable is suitably diced up, it is shoveled into a wok and waits to see if another ingredient is added to the chopping board. If a minute passes and no new ingredients show up, it turns on the wok. The wok is attached to a motor that occasionally shakes the pan to keep things from burning. Simple.

Unfortunately, things went a bit haywire when put into practice. The cutting seemed to go okay, even if SamMakes had to hold the vegetable in place with a utensil to prevent it from flying off the board. The shovel kicked in and pushed the diced ingredients into the wok, which worked fine. It even turned on the stove all by itself, as it was designed to do.

However, the motor controlling the wok-shaking was way too powerful. Instead of giving the pan a gentle but firm shake, it shook the wok so hard that frying vegetables flew everywhere. By the time the cooking was done, barely a portion remained in the wok, with the work surface splattered with all manner of foods.

Turning the motor power down did help a little, but vegetables still flew. SamMakes had to resort to listening when the system was spooling up to shake the pan and quickly add a wooden lid to keep everything in the wok. Eventually, he did get some stir-fry made, albeit it seemed a lot more stressful than making it by hand; if you want a lazy dinner in, I think you’d have a better time using Uber Eats.

If you want some inspiration on devices to improve your living spaces without the possibility of them throwing hot, oily vegetables at you, check out these Raspberry Pi projects that liven up a home.