Any good summer electrical projects?

[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.