The amount of engineering that went into it might give some pause

Sep 19, 2012 07:19 GMT  ·  By

We are pretty sure that most people have tried to toss popcorn through the air and have it land in their mouth at least once. Soon they might not have to bother at all, because the Popinator can do it for them.

The short version of the description is that the Popinator Project, from Popcorn Indiana, is a box-like machine which, upon being told to do so, chooses one popcorn piece and shoots it at your mouth.

The slightly longer explanation is that the “cannon” uses a binaural microphone system to analyze sound waves and figure out where the word “pop” came from. Based on that, it chooses where to aim the launcher.

Of course, since every piece of popcorn is different in size and shape, it has unique aerodynamic properties and, thus, may require the owner to maneuver himself to catch it.

Not bad for a random project, even if it never becomes a commercial product.

"We certainly hope that one day it will become a commercial project, but as of now there is no shipping date and no price tag," says Popcorn Indiana.