{"id":40011,"date":"2023-10-20T15:05:48","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/making-the-perfect-toast-with-50000-govt-grant-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:05:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:05:48","slug":"making-the-perfect-toast-with-50000-govt-grant-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/making-the-perfect-toast-with-50000-govt-grant-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the perfect toast with $50,000 govt grant &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/l_toaster-445.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_toaster-445\"\/><\/div>\n<p>The lingering smell of burnt toast in the morning may soon be a distant memory.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Three Adelaide experimental physicists have developed an optical sensing technology that determines when toast is ready based on its colour, rather than how long it\u2019s been in the toaster.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The trio\u2019s company SensAbility has received $50,000 from the South Australian state government on top of their own contribution of $25,000 to further develop their product.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Co-founder Dr Sean Manning told <i>StartupSmart<\/i> the idea for a sensor to determine when toast is ready based on what it looks like came about three years ago when he and fellow founders Dr Andrew Richardson and Dr Kristopher Rowland shared an office at Adelaide University\u2019s Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He says Richardson was frustrated that his landlady would freeze her bread, meaning it took longer to toast, and causing his own bread to burn when he then used the toaster.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They came up with their optical sensing solution after discussing how some people would arrive at complex solutions to problems when in fact simple answers were often the best.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt simply measures how brown it (toast) is,\u201d Manning says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He says they tested the idea in the lab using the high tech equipment at their disposal, with colleagues laughingly calling it the $100,000 toaster.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They built a number of prototypes and are now working with an engineering company on their third generation prototype.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Manning stresses they aren\u2019t out to manufacture a new toaster themselves, but are building the technology that appliance making giants can incorporate in their own machines.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe beauty of the technology is it\u2019s completely agnostic,\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s basically adding a brain to a toaster.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Manning says he and his co-founders were not really prepared for what to expect when launching their start-up, and have rapidly learnt when to tap people for expertise they don\u2019t have, such as advice on legal and patent issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFind expertise and ask around,\u201d he advises others starting up their own businesses.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you get a bad vibe from someone, it\u2019s probably right. Especially if you walk away not understanding something.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The lingering smell of burnt toast in the morning may soon be a distant memory. \u00a0 Three Adelaide experimental physicists<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}