Engineer James Bruton likes to create everyday machines that would only exist in an alternate reality. His latest creation, the SnackSync PC, takes a standard gaming computer and turns it into a pasta cooker. It watches your game for those inevitable pauses, like when a level loads or a match ends, and gets dinner started in the background. By the time you catch your breath, a pot of steaming carbonara is ready, complete with a spork to dig in.
Aluminum extrusions form the skeleton of the whole thing, those long metal profiles that snap together with brackets and T-nuts for a solid frame. Bruton cut them to length and aligned everything with a ruler for precision, then added rubber feet to stop it from moving around. Inside, the computer bits slot in neatly: an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X processor handles the heavy lifting for games, paired with 32GB of DDR5 memory and a Western Digital Blue NVMe drive for fast storage. The graphics card, a GeForce RTX 5060, mounts on a custom bracket to clear the cooking bits below. Water cooling keeps the CPU from overheating, with a sealed pump and radiator topped with fans that glow green to match the theme. RGB lighting runs throughout, but Bruton toned it all down to that same green for consistency.
- 7 Cooking Functions: Pressure cook, slow cook, sauté, steam, make rice, yogurt, or simply keep your meal warm—all in one appliance
- Customizable Smart Programs: Tackle every recipe with 13 one-touch options, from hearty soups to decadent cakes
- Safe & Easy Steam Release: The Easy-Release steam switch ensures fast, safe, and simple steam release every time
Cooking duties fall to a modified electric kettle at the top of the frame. Bruton swapped out the internals to dispense exactly 200ml of boiling water, enough for one Knorr pasta pot without overflow. He removed the steam sensor that would cut the boil short and added a servo-driven button to trigger it automatically. Below sits a holder for the pasta pot, which slides on a horizontal rail powered by a DC motor and belt drive. End stops made from roller microswitches snap it into place under the kettle spout or back to the front for easy access. A drip tray catches any stray drops, because nobody wants a soggy desk during a raid boss fight.
When the water pours in, the fun begins. A vertical rail, likewise belt-driven but with a 2:1 gear reduction to counteract gravity, lowers a stirring arm into the pot. At the end of that arm is a spork, a spoon-fork combo printed in tough green PLA plastic. A geared motor spins it back and forth for 3 seconds each way, enough to mix the pasta without flinging bits everywhere. Bruton designed the spork with a hole for latching and a grub screw to hold it firm, saying it needs torque like a boat propeller caught in weeds. After the initial mix, a servo closes a lid over the pot for 5 minutes of steam, timed just right for the flavors to meld. Progress is shown through LEDs on both sides of the case, each one lighting up every 15 seconds to show the wait.
Software ties the whole operation together, and here Bruton shines with his coding chops. Running on Windows 11, the system includes an application called Game State Integration that glances at your gameplay through the serial connection. It detects certain periods of inactivity and transmits a signal to an inside Arduino microcontroller. With the help of a single-threaded state machine, that board manages the motors and servos in a seamless manner. Timers handle the stirring intervals, and a quick debounce on the switches keeps false triggers at bay. A 2.8-inch Adafruit touchscreen up front allows you to select a five-, ten-, or fifteen-minute reminder for manual runs. To keep things simple, the screen takes images from an SD card and reacts to basic presses.
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