Engineering and the Easy-Bake Oven (Part 2)

So does the Easy-Bake Oven of 2010 look the same as the original? And does it produce the same yummy treats that my eight-year-old self so cherished? I decided to find out and made a trip to my local Toys R Us. There, I purchased the oven for $25, including vanilla cake and sugar cookie mixes. For more variety, I also bought some Easy-Bake chocolate-chip cookie mix (sold separately.) Rounding out my purchases was a box of 100-watt light bulbs (an increase in power over the 60-watters.)

To my disappointment, the plaid oven I so dearly remembered had evolved into a slick, plastic, green-and-white microwave. The clock is fake. The knobs, as I discovered after twisting them like mad for several minutes, do absolutely nothing. My nostalgic bubble was about to burst, but I remembered that it's not the packaging that's important – it's what comes out of the oven! So I preheated it for 15 long minutes and proceeded to bake all of the treats for a major sugar high. Admittedly, the cake and cookies tasted just as sugary and delicious as they did when I was eight years old.

After I crashed from ingesting so much sugar, I began to wonder how an Easy-Bake Oven really works- and what was inside that slick plastic microwave casing. So I brought the oven to work the following day and asked an engineer to take it apart. This wasn't rocket science, but it wasn't a trivial task either. Because the screw holes were triangle-shaped, the engineer had to create a makeshift screwdriver in order to get them out.

Why did the Easy-Bake Oven's designers make this so complex? Are they worried that children with screwdrivers might discover a trade secret? The light bulb setting came out first, and then the moment of truth – the actual oven apparatus. This, dear reader, is the heart of the Easy-Bake Oven.

It's also final nail in the coffin for a bit of my childhood nostalgia.

Editor's Note: This is the second installment in a two-part story. Click here for Part 1, where you'll learn about the electric inventor who designed the original Easy Bake Oven of Galina's childhood.

General:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy-Bake_Oven

http://www.retroland.com/pages/retropedia/toys/item/2313/

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-easy-bake-oven.htm

Can you bake anything in it?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0762414405/thegreatideafind

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/history/letters/letter38.htm

Evolution:

http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/12/31/the-evolution-of-the-easy-bake-oven/

http://www.hasbro.com/easybake/default.cfm?page=History

http://www.plaidstallions.com/kenner/bake.html