Molecular gastronomy would be a fun thing to try at one of the hacker spaces (hacker dojo, noisebridge, ...) (or just one well-equipped kitchen).
Several cooking techniques (e.g. sous vide) use some interesting electronics and control systems, combined with chemistry. I've also seen some traditional techniques/foods (smoker for pulled pork) augmented with monitoring systems (it posts to twitter when ready).
Switching food distribution from "ship finished packaged processed product to end user for consumption" to "query local ingredients, do local processing in a semi-automated fashion, profit" would be interesting. If you could make the tools smarter, and give step by step instructions and instant feedback/correction if something goes wrong, cooking would be a lot easier, and more fun. (e.g. making a sauce, a camera could observe if it is too thin, and suggest a specific amount of cornstarch to add)
Several cooking techniques (e.g. sous vide) use some interesting electronics and control systems, combined with chemistry. I've also seen some traditional techniques/foods (smoker for pulled pork) augmented with monitoring systems (it posts to twitter when ready).
Switching food distribution from "ship finished packaged processed product to end user for consumption" to "query local ingredients, do local processing in a semi-automated fashion, profit" would be interesting. If you could make the tools smarter, and give step by step instructions and instant feedback/correction if something goes wrong, cooking would be a lot easier, and more fun. (e.g. making a sauce, a camera could observe if it is too thin, and suggest a specific amount of cornstarch to add)
Sort of like the "rock band" of cooking.