I wish I could claim this idea for myself but a former coworker actually first suggested it.
For those who don't know already, fast food places apply sauce to their sandwiches with modified chaulking guns. While this allows for fast application, it could be made faster.
Have a central compressor connected via a medusa's mop of hoses to the sauce cannister holders, each of which has a laser sight/distance finder mounted on its head.
In automatic mode, the distance finder would track the change in distance over time sampled in very small time increments (milliseconds, nanoseconds?). Upon detecting a number of rapid, slight "ululations" in its distance/time graph, which would occur as a result of the sight being passed over a porous surface (the burger bun), it automatically fires an appropriate amount of sauce.
In manual mode, the laser can be used as a sight, and also adjust the pressure of each "shot" to a level appropriate for the distance. It could even be set to only fire within a certain distance range, to keep the saucers from firing it at unpleasant coworkers or customers, although most workers would want this option to be toggleable.
All in all, I think this device would be great for streamlining the burger business, and also a great means of devilry. Models could be sold which run off of portable compressors for personal use, too.-- nick_n_uit, Aug 29 2001 (?) Sauce shooter link http://www.gowcb.co...rse/PDF/fh-1726.pdfcareful there... [andrewuk, Oct 04 2004] Anything which further streamlines F.A.S.T. F.O.O.D. (Fully Automated Serving Technology For Over Oily Dinners) is A-OK with me.I wish I had one of those automatic flame broiler conveyer belt units myself. Drop that horsemeat pattie in that sucker and cook those maggots to a crisp all the while watching a 300 psi sauce / condiment applicator do its thing just before the autospatula plops that pattie down on the bun. mmmmmmmmmm - enjoy a croissant buttered at 300 psi.-- thumbwax, Aug 29 2001 nick, was that intentional, "a great means of *DEVILry*"? That pesky need for ~2000 calories/day is one of the tendrils of control that enable the evil mega-corps to keep the masses in check, so it's terribly funny either way.
thumbwax, I say the faster the better. Once that styrofoam package slides into my open car window, I'll have my Speed Feed EnguzzlatorMax open it and mash the whole thing just a bit, then automatically propel the entire mass of it into my open, waiting gullet during the split second that it takes me to get back into traffic. From drive in to drive out, 48 seconds for lunch, now that's fast! whee!-- absterge, Aug 29 2001 absterge: I meant devilry as in mischievious activity...Think of how much fun the grill grunts could have with this thing, especially when dealing with some of their less pleasant patrons. For that matter, how much havoc we all could induce with the personal models.-- nick_n_uit, Aug 29 2001 Thought this idea said "300dpi Sauce Shooter". Had images of a modified inkjet printer squirting pretty sauce pictures onto your food.-- -alx, Aug 30 2001 I thought it was "300 dpi" too - the advertising potential of a 300 dpi sauce injet printer in a fast food outlet would be enormous.-- hippo, Aug 30 2001 We need to find some justification for putting the sauce on the outside of the burger bap, unless having it hidden on the inside works in some subliminal way...-- -alx, Aug 30 2001 Half a croissant for the original idea; the other half for the 'printed sauce' annotations.-- tminus12, Aug 30 2001 would it not be cooler to train fast food employees to shoot at quick moving targets and give them paintball guns that fire pellets of the desired sauce enclosed in a variant of the sauce for the shell. You can then fire the burgers across a shotting range and have about ten employee's at the ready to fire. This would also make trips to McDonalds more fun, coz as well as hearing those goddamn fry timer's every 10 seconds you would also hear the kind of woosh/thump kind of sound emitted by a paintball gun every so often as another round of burgers is shot to hell.-- kaz, Aug 30 2001 Much safer than actually EATING them...-- StarChaser, Aug 30 2001 This would have been a fun thing to have back in the day when i was a cook. It would have made the weekend shift a lot more fun. It would have made 'kitchen-rage' a more popular passtime.-- chupacabra, Jan 26 2002 "Gimme 3 Super-Size fries" will there be anything else? "Nope" mmmmK - 6.93 - pull up to the first window "'K"======== 6.93 "Here's 7.00, keep the change" 'K, pull up to the second window, <snicker>nice knowin' ya</snicker> "Huh" ======== you want ketchup? "Nope" (clerk ducks a la Sonny Corleone hit at tollbooth) <budda-budda-budda- pow - budda-budda-budda- pow! -budda-budda-budda- pow - budda-budda-budda- pow! - budda-budda-budda- pow - budda-budda-budda- pow! - budda-budda-budda- pow - budda-budda-budda- pow! -budda-budda-budda- pow - budda-budda-budda- pow! - budda-budda-budda- pow - budda-budda-budda- pow!>"Unh... hey... I said...ow... I didn't want... ketchup"Here's yer change mister - <Blam! Blam! Blam!> Have a nice day-- thumbwax, Jan 28 2002 random, halfbakery