[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

I'm not a fancy electrical type, but I have an interesting project you might try:

I was trying to microwave popcorn last night, and I had to listen to the kernels pop and stop the microwave after I started hearing 2 seconds of silence between pops. This was pretty annoying because I had to sit there for 4 or 5 minutes hitting "add 30 seconds" on the microwave. I bet you could make a device that would hit the required keys on a microwave (+30sec and stop) and use a microphone or some audio device to recognize pops. Maybe throw in a couple 555 timers (one to check time between pops, one to keep the microwave running by hitting +30sec), logic gates, a relay or two (controlling solenoids that press the microwave's buttons), and you've got a reasonably complex circuit to perfectly cook popcorn.

Best of luck in your summer projects.

Why couldn't you just set the microwave to run for 5 (or more) minutes then wait until the popping started to slow, then stop the microwave (at the right point) and clear the time? Seems like that would prevent you from needing to stand by the microwave for more than ~30sec.