What a cracking invention: Wallace and Gromit-style breakfast-making machine that guarantees a perfect start to the day

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 08:40 GMT, 28 October 2009

Hollywood directors dreamed of it: the breakfast machine. Imagine a contraption that sets a chain reaction in motion at the push of a button, frying eggs, juicing oranges, brewing coffee, making toast, and serving it all on a plate with jam, meat and cheese.

What a perfect way to start the day!

This fantasy became reality, when Japanese designers Yuri Suzuki and Masa Kimura built a real-life breakfast machine  with help from fellow designers and the public.

Scroll down to the bottom to watch a video of the amazing machine in action...

Cracking idea: Breakfast making begins when an egg is rolled from a chicken cage (1) down a chute (10) and onto a hotplate (2) where it breaks and cooks. The finished scrambled egg then drops onto a plate on a sliding tray (3). Meanwhile, the kettle (4) boils and dispenses water into a cup after freshly ground coffee (5) is dropped in. A loaf of bread is then sliced (9) as it passes along a conveyor belt, before dropping into a toaster (6). When it pops, a counterweight system (7) carries it to a paint roller-style device (8) which spreads the bread with butter and jam. Freshly-squeezed orange juice is then conveyed to the tray (11) and, hey presto, breakfast is served

Yuri Suzuki, 26, who studied at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London, made the Wallace and Gromit-style device with fellow artist Masa Kimura, 28.

It was built at the Platform 21 exhibition centre in Amsterdam, and saw scores of helpers and other designers contribute.

The impressive device can prepare everything from omelettes to freshly-squeezed orange juice, and can even spread butter and jam onto toast. It will also grind coffee beans before brewing them.

Tokyo-born Mr Suzuki, who has lived in Hackney, east London, for the past three years, told how his creation had been inspired by Hollywood films.

'When you look at movies like Pee Wee Herman and Back to the Future, there are breakfast machines in them,' he said.

The ingenious design sees a series of different mechanisms combined to create one large machine.

Enlarge  

Yuri Suzuki, 26, who worked at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London, made the device with Masa Kimura, 28. Here he tests the bread delivery system

Creature comforts: Yuri Suzuki demonstrates how boiling water from the kettle passes through a funnel onto freshly ground beans to make filter coffee

The omelette-making process begins when an egg falls down a slide into a funnel, which breaks the shell, mixes the yolk and white, and drops it onto a hot plate for cooking.

A loaf of bread is sliced as it passes along a conveyer belt, before dropping into a toaster. When it pops, a basket carries it to a paint roller-style device which spreads the bread with butter and jam.

The coffee machine uses a motor to grind coffee beans before dropping them into a filter. A pulley system is then used to pour boiling water from a kettle over the grounds and into a mug below.

Juice is made from freshly-squeezed oranges, which tumble through a tube before they are sliced, ground and filtered into a glass.

The machine build began on September 16 and used a bizarre selection of devices including alarm clocks and record players.

'It was completely automated, it worked on its own,' said Mr Suzuki. 'I felt like a conductor at the event when we were putting it together.'

'It is absolutely massive,' he added. 'Thirteen metres wide and three metres long - and in total took 88 hours over 11 days to build. It was an incredible effort.

Tasty invention: Members of the public were invited to try out breakfasts produced by the machine

'We had lots of different people come and help us out with putting it together. People came and we would task them with coming up with different bits of it.'

And he said it would be possible for budding Wallaces to come up with their own version of the device - if they felt so inclined.

He said: 'If someone wanted to make one for themselves it might not leave you that out of pocket.

'We bought a lot of the stuff from a car boot sale, so it didn't cost that much - in total the project was probably £900.'

The concept of a fully automated breakfast machine is not a new one - as well as Wallace and Gromit, film characters such as Back to the Future's Dr Emmett Brown and Caractacus Potts, played by Dick van Dyke in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, all created their own versions.

Mr Suzuki's creation has now been dismantled, but he told how he had hopes of exhibiting it around the world.

'We want to bring it around the world and I want to bring it here to London very soon,' he said.

'I see breakfast as a symbol for a beginning, due to when you eat it - at the start of the day.

'It took a long time with a lot of people working on it, but it was worth it.'

Dick Van Dyke in the classic film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with his breakfast making machine

The breakfast club: Mr Suzuki's incredible invention is reminiscent of Wallace and Gromit's crazy plasticine contraptions

Now watch the video of how the breakfast machine works...