Robot Helps Identify the Perfect Cookie

Computers have changed how we do most things, but they’ve also brought changes to the culture as a whole. One example of that shift — the embrace of data analytics in all things — is epitomized by a new invention by computer programmer and science hobbyist Ben Krasnow: the Cookie Perfection Machine.

The Cookie Perfection Machine makes individual cookies according to the user’s specifications, entered by computer, by meting out the specified proportion of every ingredient and dispensing it into a receptacle. A sheet of cookies thus becomes a “flight” of cookie recipes to taste, and the fastidious baker can identify which recipe is best.

The robot chef needs some fine-tuning to make it easier to use, but with, say, an automatic mixer, it could find a market in bakeries as well as with persnickety home chefs.