Freeform Fabrication of Fluidic Edible Materials
Freeform Fabrication of Fluidic Edible Materials
Humphrey Yang, Danli Luo, Kuanren Qian, Lining Yao
Publication: Freeform Fabrication of Fluidic Edible Materials (ACM CHI 2021) PDF
Role: Fabrication method design, computational toolmaking, experiments and evaluation, application design, documentation
From providing nutrition to facilitating social exchanges, food plays an essential role in our daily lives and cultures. In HCI, we are interested in using food as an interaction medium and a context of personal fabrication. Yet, the design space of available food printing methods is limited to shapes with minimal overhangs and materials that have a paste-like consistency. In this work, we seek to expand this design space by adapting support bath-assisted printing to the food context. The bath scaffolds the embedded materials and preserves shapes during the printing processes, enabling us to create freeform food with fluid-like materials. We provide users guidelines for choosing the appropriate support bath type and processing methods depending on the printing material's properties. A design tool suite and application examples, including confectionery arts, 4D printed food, and edible displays are also offered to demonstrate the enabled interaction design space.
Intro Video
CHI 2021 Presentation
Concept
Raw food materials are often fluidic and have difficulties holding their shapes in the open air, making it challenging to digitally fabricate them into desired 3D shapes. We adapt an embedded printing method that’s commonly used in biomedical engineering to handle these fluidic edible materials. By printing the materials into a hydrogel bath, the bath will support the embedded material to retain their shape while they solidify. Once set, the printed objects can be retrieved from the bath for further use.
Design and engineering tools including chef-friendly recipes, material selection guidelines, and freeform printing slicers are offered to help users identify the proper printing method for their material-of-choice.
Design and Fabrication Tools
The fabrication method is compatible with conventional hobbyist 3D printers. We also offer a slicer toolset to help users generate freeform toolpaths that have non-planar movements. The toolset allows users to slice 3D volumes, 2D surfaces, and 1D shapes into the desired infill pattern. Users also have control over the flow rate, which allows them to produce objects that have a changing diameter.
Workflow
With our tool, users can start by importing a 3D volume and slice/intersect it with a 2D surface to generate a non-planar toolpath. Next, users can modify the flow rate over the toolpath to create denser or looser structures. Once complete, the design tool exports a gcode file for fabrication.
Design opportunities
We present several examples to demonstrate the enabled design space, including confectionary arts, 3D puffable dough, and a jelly display. These artifacts are otherwise difficult -if not impossible - to produce with conventional open-air 3D printing methods due to their material properties. Future HCI research may leverage this printing method to create and enable more diverse, immersive, and affective human-food interactions.
Working with Pastry Chef
Our team at CMU also invited a local pastry chef - Shelby Costo - to co-create several dessert dishes with us.
Acknowledgment
This research was partially supported by the National Science Foundation grant IIS-2017008. We thank Andrew Lee, Neeha Dev Arun, and Adam Feinberg for introducing the embedded printing method, and Angel (Alex) Cabrera, Michael Rivera, and Malika Khurana for the research feedback. Our special thank goes to chef Shelby Costo for her help with the design explorations.
