My old friend Kevin sent in these pictures of a massive array of tasty electronic treats that he and his family made for a group picnic at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Nice work!) If your diet is short on precision op-amps and instrumentation amplifiers, these just might hit the spot.
You can read our own article about circuitry snacks (dated July 11, 2007) here.
We made this chain of twelve giant links on the CandyFab 4000 to demonstrate the fabrication of a complex object, the sort that is difficult to make by conventional machining processes. You can see the 3D model and some build pictures for this monstrosity over at CandyFab.org.
This object also highlights the relatively large build envelope of the CandyFab– significantly larger than that of most other low end (i.e., under $50k) 3D fabrication systems.
PS for Chemistry geeks: insert joke about long-chain hydrocarbons here.
It would seem that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has seen fit to bless this bag of Haribo “Sour S’ghetti” with his noodly presence. (Ramen.)
We came across this while working on the Circuitry Snacks project– they were one of the candidates that we originally thought might be good to serve as edible “wires.” Go figure.
[Related: FSM Costume, FSM Toast]
Here we present what is arguably the tastiest way to design and learn about electronic circuits: make circuitry snacks!
Two of our favorite things in the world are playing with electronics and playing with food, and so it is about time that someone finally got around to combining the two. We begin by gathering up appropriate snack-food building blocks and making food-based models of electronic components. From these components, you can assemble “circuitry snacks”– edible models of functioning electronic circuits. You can make these for fun, for dessert, for your geek friends, for kids, and for teaching and learning electronics.
Continue reading Circuitry Snacks
How to cook hot dogs… with electricity!
[Disclaimerzilla: While we could give you lots of warnings about all the different dangers involved and how to possibly skirt them, the simple truth is that this just isn’t safe. If you are foolish enough to attempt this, you will have to deal with pointy things, raw electricity out of the wall, hot steam, and the possibility of fire. If that isn’t enough, and you succeed, you are still faced with the possibility of having to eat a hot dog. In summary: do not, under any circumstances, cook hot dogs this way.]
Continue reading Cooking hot dogs via electrocution
One of the things that we kept hearing as a comment about our CNC toast story is that we really should be printing the Virgin Mary on grilled cheese sandwiches, or something like that.
As it turned out, by the time that we actually wrote about our toasting, we had already moved on to bigger and (probably) better things, like printing sugar. Since we were rushing to get ready for Maker Faire, we didn’t get a chance to make more creative toast.
But, Maker Faire has come and gone, and we’ve finally got our machine reassembled, and so here we are toasting again. Believe it or not, this is actually a step in the right direction for CandyFab as well, because these were printed at 20 DPI, already an improvement with four times as many pixels as our previous batches at 10 DPI. These four Flying Spaghetti Monster images on toast are adapted from the original artwork in pencil, by Bobby Henderson.
Oh yeah, and I put one of them on eBay. =D
Here’s how to take your left over Marshmallow Peeps, add a few components, and make them into pimped-out peepmobiles.
Okay, so Easter has come and gone. Really gone. And if you’re like us, you didn’t eat all of your Peeps. Have they gone bad by now? Probably not. As it turns out, the yellow chick-shaped Peeps are made all year long to build up enough supply for each easter, so the ones that you get for Easter could *already* be a year old. (So why can’t you buy them all year long? You can… you just have to know where to look.)
Even if you’re still saving your Chicks to eat them later, you’re not alone. The official Peeps site has a poll up asking whether you like your Peeps “Fresh from the package or aged to perfection.” According to the results so far, a full 12% of peepeaters like to wait six months or more.
However, we seem to be digressing. Let’s just go ahead and assume that you weren’t going to eat all of them. Then whatever’s left, you can make into Peepmobiles.
Continue reading Make a peepmobile
This is a rendering of the sculpture Soliton by Bathsheba Grossman, as output by the CandyFab 4000; it’s a three-dimensional form made out of pure sugar. Seeing Bathsheba’s sculptures at the 2006 Maker Faire was the inspiration for us to build the machine in the first place, so it’s quite exciting to be able to print this. (The design is used by her kind permission– please buy some of her sculptures!)
This is our second try at fabbing this difficult shape. Our first attempt was at a somewhat smaller size and ran into trouble with the thin beams when *one* of our thin horizontal layers turned out to be too weakly bonded. To avoid a second failure, we enlarged the model but also ran the heater element very hot and for an extended period of time to make the pixels srong, but also larger, more rounded, and richer in color– a darker caramel.
In this view we’re looking right down at the printed layers of sugar; we think that the grain of the layers makes this look a lot like a wood carving.
Of course, that’s not all that we’ve been printing this week. Here is one more large-scale object that we made:
The shape is a 3/4 twist mobius strip with a square cross section and windows cut at regular intervals in all of the sides the side. Even though it’s hollow, it still weighs seven pounds and fourteen ounces– that’s a lot of sugar. We’re bringing this monster to Maker Faire this weekend, so you can see it for yourself, too.
In February we gave a sneak preview of our project to construct a home-built three dimensional fabricator. Our design goals were (1) a low cost design leveraging recycled components (2) large printable volume emphasized over high resolution, and (3) ability to use low-cost printing media including granulated sugar. We are extremely pleased to be able to report that it has been a success: Our three dimensional fabricator is now fully operational and we have used it to print several large, low-resolution, objects out of pure sugar.
Continue reading Solid freeform fabrication: DIY, on the cheap, and made of pure sugar
One small slice of bread, one giant leap for toasters.
Continue reading Finally, CNC toast!
