Created with 3D Printing, The Gesture Box Reinvents ‘Getting Service’ at a Restaurant

February 7, 2014 by Randall Desmond 3D Design

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What is one thing that people despise about eating out at restaurants? More than likely, you would say, “waiting for service”.

A company called Cynergy Systems has set out to fix this problem, with a little help from 3D Printing. After meeting with and talking to restaurant managers, servers, and diners, the R&D department starting working on what they called “Project Dovetail”.

“Project Dovetail” looked at ways in which they could make the restaurant experience better, with the implementation of modern technology. What they came up with, was the “Gesture Box”; a little electronic box that sits on the top of every table in a restaurant. When a dining patron wishes to get service, they simply wave their hand over the box, and a signal is sent to both the server and manager’s mobile devices.

The Gesture Box was created within the R&D department using MakerBot 3D printers to print the external casing. Inside the box is a Leap Motion Sensor, and an Arduino microcontroller.

The Gesture Box casing being printed by a MakerBot 3D printer

In talking about the restaurant experience, Dave Wolf, Vice President of Research & Development at Cynergy said:

“What we really don’t want to do, is to have to wait and pay our bill. For the restaurant, what they really want to do is get the bill paid and the table turned, so that they can increase their profits.”
“By using new technologies like 3D printing, and off-the-shelf consumer electronics, mixed with an iterative and agile approach like we use at Cynergy on the software side; what we came up with is what we call the Gesture Box.”

Wolf believes that rapid iterations like those that you get from 3D printers went a long way in helping Cynergy develop this incredible new device.

Cynergy is a rather large company that employees over 200 full time workers in 9 offices all around the United States. They specialize in creating digital experiences that ‘engage, inform, inspire and influence’ people. Whether or not these devices start catching on in restaurants has yet to be seen.

What do you think about this Gesture Box? Will it catch on? Discuss this article and the technology behind it at: https://3dprintboard.com/showthread.php?1678-Cynergy-uses-3D-Printing-to-reinvent-the-restaurant-experience