# CrankGPT is a hand-cranked AI project with real edge-computing numbers

> Source: <https://runtimewire.com/article/crankgpt-is-a-hand-cranked-ai-project-with-real-edge-computing-numbers>
> Published: 2026-06-15 22:34:30+00:00

Katrin Tomanek and Alex Kauffmann have built CrankGPT, a hand cranked, fully offline AI box that is part product satire and part serious edge computing benchmark. The technical documentation published by Squeez Labs makes clear that the gag has working hardware underneath it: a Raspberry Pi 5, a 20W hand crank generator, a custom capacitor board, local speech recognition, a local language model, and local text to speech. The pitch page sells the joke hard, with tiers that run from a 20W hand ...