Office toast launcher

The auto-buttering toaster has been suggested already. This idea expands that proposal, harnessing the aerodynamic properties of toast.

Through diligent research conducted during my student days I know that toast, when dry or evenly buttered, can be hurled more accurately than those uninitiated in the noble art of toast marksmanship might expect. I also know, from my subsequent employment in various offices, that the time required to prepare a round of delicious toast is often in short supply.

My solution is an apparatus by which a hungry user, seated at a computer, may initiate the toasting, buttering and dispensing of a round of toast.

Having selected the toast's properties (bread type, brownness, condiments, etc) from a client application on his desktop computer, the user hits the 'Toast!' button. The client sends an instruction over the corporate network to the Toast Processing Unit which, via a robotic arm, selects the appropriate bread and inserts it into the toaster. The bread is toasted to the specification of the user, removed by the TPU from the toaster and spread with the requested condiments.

The user having previously registered his physical location within the office, the TPU then hurls the toast towards him, employing sophisticated algorithms to impart the appropriate force and spin at the correct trajectory. A receiving apparatus, roughly analogous to a baseball glove, is briefly raised from the back of the user's chair to safely receive the toast and place it onto a plate next to the user.

Extensions to this suggestion might include a visual component to identify and correct for objects moving through the toast's projected path. A more sophisticated variant may also be able to hurl croissants, bagels and other bread products with the requisite degree of accuracy, though significant research into the aerodynamics of such objects would be needed.