Alright, so today I'm gonna share my little adventure with building an egg cleaning machine. Sounds kinda fancy, right? But trust me, it was more duct tape and hope than high-tech engineering. Let's dive in!

First thing I did was get the idea. Saw some videos online of these fancy machines, all automated and shiny, and thought, "Hey, I can probably bodge something together that does the same thing, but for way cheaper." Famous last words, I know.

Next, I started scavenging. I needed a motor, a water pump, some brushes, and a container. The motor came from an old washing machine that was kicking around in my garage. The water pump? An aquarium pump I wasn't using. The brushes were the tricky part. I ended up using some soft-bristled toothbrushes that I attached to a rotating disc. The container was just a plastic tub I found in the basement. You know, the kind you store holiday decorations in?

Then came the fun part – building the frame. I used some scrap wood I had lying around. It was a real patchwork job, all screwed and glued together. It looked kinda like a Frankenstein monster of a machine, but hey, it held everything in place. Sort of.

I mounted the motor to the frame and connected it to the rotating disc with the toothbrushes. The water pump sat at the bottom of the tub, ready to spray water onto the eggs as they rolled around. Getting the right distance and angle for the brushes was a pain. Lots of trial and error involved. And by "trial and error," I mean lots of eggs getting thrown across the room.

Wiring everything up was the next challenge. I'm no electrician, so I kept it simple. Plug the motor into a wall outlet, plug the pump into another. I added a simple on/off switch for each. Safety first, right? (Don't worry, I didn't actually electrocute myself.)

Finally, the moment of truth – testing. I loaded a handful of eggs into the tub, turned on the water pump, and flipped the switch for the motor. The brushes started spinning, the water started spraying... and the eggs started bouncing around like crazy. It was a chaotic mess. The eggs were getting cleaned, sure, but they were also getting bruised and cracked.

I made some adjustments. I slowed down the motor, adjusted the water pressure, and added some padding to the bottom of the tub. After a few more tweaks, I finally got it to a point where it was cleaning the eggs reasonably well without destroying them. Not perfect, mind you, but definitely an improvement over hand-washing each one.

So, there you have it – my egg cleaning machine. It's ugly, it's clunky, and it's probably not OSHA-approved, but it works. And that's all that matters, right?

Lessons learned:

• Building things is fun, even if you don't know what you're doing.
• Duct tape is a lifesaver.
• Eggshells are surprisingly fragile.