Greetings, I’m Humphrey Yang from Carnegie Mellon.
Today, I am here to present freeform fabrication of fluidic edible materials.
Food is beyond nutrition. In HCI, we are interested in using them to
mediate sensory experiences and to influence user behaviors,
to display information,
and to leverage them as shape changing interfaces with novel, augmented functions.
However, if we look at the design space of digital food fabrication,
we will find that while a wide range of materials and shapes has already been navigated,
printing fluidic materials into 3D shapes is still challenging,
and we are dedicated to enable this design space.
In particular, this design space is challenging because
fluidic materials cannot retain their shapes well after printing,
which also makes it difficult to create complex structures.
So in response, we propose to adapt embedded printing for foods.
Embedded printing was originally used in biomedical engineering.
Instead of printing onto a platform, this method extrudes materials into a gel-like bath,
which functions as an omnidirectional support during the printing process.
In these work, two support baths formulations are adapted for food.
The fabrication method consists of three steps:
support bath preparation, materials embedding, and print release.
Since the two bath types each has their physical limitations,
We provide guidelines for choosing the appropriate support bath formulation
based on the embedded material’s properties,
as well as a computational toolkit for generating freeform print files.
Finally, we use these tools to explore the enabled design spaces,
including artistic and functional ones.
We used a hobbyist desktop 3D printer in this work,
Which is outfitted with a syringe pump
and a blunt tip needle to poke into the baths
The printer takes conventional Gcode files as input, and it
can create 3D objects with non-planar toolpaths.
When creating freeform shapes, we found that
where conventional printing methods failed to create a gentle overhanging slope,
embedded printing can keep going without failure and produce an almost horizontal overhang.
The advantage of using embedded printing is even more visible
when we print highly fluidic materials, like a wet dough.
In this experiment, we can see that compared to a conventional printing method,
embedded printing can accommodate a high water content dough without visible defects.
And after printing, the dough can be heat-cured to set its shape and retrieved from the bath.
In terms of the printed shapes, we also developed a toolkit for generating 3D toolpaths.
In addition to the conventional layer-by-layer slicing and constant extrusion profile,
we also implement new functions like a freeform slicer to generate non-planar toolpaths
and a geodesic slicer to create surface patches with a uniform line spacing.
Users can also assign toolpaths with a varying thickness to create more expressive shapes.
To exemplify the print file generation workflow, given an egg shape like this
and a helical slicing surface,
we can use the freeform slicer to create a non-planar toolpath with an
increasing line spacing toward the top
And the toolpath can be assigned with a decreasing thickness
to make the two halves even more aesthetically contrasting.
Once that’s done, a compiler takes over the results
to produce a corresponding Gcode file, which can be directly used by the printers.
With these design tools,
we created several confectionary arts to demonstrate the enabled design space.
Using a sacrificial support bath, we were able to print chocolate into delicate 3D shapes
that are otherwise difficult to print with existing techniques.
It also augments unskilled users to create desserts that would traditionally require
fine craftsmanship, like jelly arts or Wagashi.
The bath can also be used as a timed-release mechanism.
After printing and trapping a shape in the support bath,
the shape can be control-released by exposing the block to a dissolving factor,
like using heat on a gelatine bath/block.
For instance, a jellyfish printed and trapped inside of a gelatin block was set free in a bowl
of hot water. In this video, we can see the bath melting away and the jellyfish becoming adrift.
We speculate that a design like this can be used for signaling the cooking process.
Also, taking inspiration from fried dough,
we explore the shape-changing dimension of embedded food printing.
A wet dough was printed and cured into a 3D shape inside of a sacrificial bath,
After taking it out and drying it,
The object was puffed in hot oil to increase its size, enabling a 3D fried food design space.
Looking forward to the future, we believe that for
chefs, makers, and researchers
u sing the embedded food printing method,
will be able to create computational cuisines that are
personalized, functionalized, and enable interactions,
such as using food as holographic displays.
This image shows a jelly block embedded with hollow channels. When perfused with dyed fluids,
The jelly works as a segmented display to show the digit '1'
and '0'. But still, there are even more exciting design opportunities to explore in the future.
This is the end of our presentation, and we are happy to take questions. Thank you!