[Here's your host...] NAME THAT WIDGET

September 11, 1998

FROM OUR
AUGUST 3 CONTEST

[Aug. 3 Widget]

The Bratawave, a battery-powered, portable microwave for bratwurts and other sausages, is actually a vacuum-line heater from MKS Instruments Inc.

AND THE WINNER IS....
Stanley Benes of Motorola

BUT THESE ARE PRETTY GOOD TOO....

The Last Call, a telephone handset for the electric chair—John Kerr
E-Z Vac, a liposuction device for the home/consumer market—Mark Fredrickson
A hamster wash that fits on a hamster Habitrail. Three stations, indicated by the connections, provide soap, rinse, and blow dry—David Whittle
A self-portrait of Picasso—Rob Marquardt, Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley
A virtual phone, so your mother-in-law can speak to someone in her own mind—Sean Todd
A nuclear luggage handle designed to dismember the airline handlers who dismember your luggage—Rick Duncan
An inchworm carrying case—Doug Gorgen, Toshiba

Enter our contest and win $100

Stanley Benes of Motorola wins the Name That Widget! contest for EDN’s August 3, 1998, issue. Stan identified the contest widget, shown at the left, as the Bratawave, a battery-powered, portable microwave for bratwursts and other sausages.

That identification came as a surprise to the widget’s manufacturer, MKS Instruments (www.mksinst.com), who had previously considered it to be a vacuum-line heater for use in semiconductor manufacturing. “We’ve never tried it on sausages,” says an MKS spokesperson, “but this could be a whole new market segment.” Displaying admirable candor, MKS admits that the device isn’t ideal for cooking bratwursts, even though it performs a similar function in semiconductor manufacturing. By heating vacuum lines, the device keeps process by-products in a gaseous form so that they don’t sublimate on the lines’ interior walls and lead to clogging. The Bratawave could also provide uniform heating for sausages, says the MKS spokesperson, but avoiding clogged arteries might be more difficult in that application.

To enter our latest contest, with a prize of $100, check out the device shown below, and Name That Widget! Send your entry (or entries), along with the issue date, by e-mail (widget@edn.cahners.com), by fax (Wallace P Widget, 1-617-558-4470), or by snail mail (Wallace P Widget, EDN Magazine, 275 Washington Street, Newton, MA 02458).

[This month's widget. You'll have to load this image if you want to play the game.]

Deadline for entries: September 24, 1998

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