What Is This? A Microwave for Ants?

You likely use a microwave to heat up food and beverages at certain points during the day. Program in the cook time, and after a few minutes it beeps (and beeps and beeps) dutifully to let you know that it’s done. Although this 1:12 scale microwave by Redditor EnosCamare won’t actually cook anything, you could be excused for thinking otherwise.

As shown in this Reddit video, you can plug it in to the “wall” via a tiny two-prong socket, then open the door with your fingers and insert an (also very small) coffee cup using tweezers. Close the door, rotate the potentiometer to set the time, then push the start button to activate it. The inside of the “microwave” then lights up, and a turntable spins, while a seven-segment LED numerical display down to zero. When it reaches the end, it then give a distinct “beep, beep, beep” to let you know it’s done, allowing you to pull out your model drink, snack or meal.

Amazingly, the different components are all housed inside this little 3D-printed model, including a tiny pager motor to spin the turntable, and a Seeduino XIAO SAM D21 Cortex-M0+ dev board for control. The LED display setup was custom made for the job, as part of what would seem to be a heroic display of miniature soldering and assembly.