Comments on: Ad Astra Con Sketches

By: StephenD

StephenD — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 20:25:41 +0000

Mmmm… Could one use a MakerBot to print out corset’s sections, which would snap together and make up the corset, then you use the plastic string as a lace to finish up…

By: DeuxVis

DeuxVis — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:19:52 +0000

There have been some successfull experimentations in the reprap community - from which makerbot is a derivative - with chocolate and other foods printing. For instance richrap made some chocolate bunnies with his 3D printer this Easter - search for the word "yum" in the page if you want to skip the introducing technical stuff.

By: Aaron Double

Aaron Double — Sun, 06 May 2012 01:13:57 +0000

The edible tool head made by makerbot is called the frostruder, it prints in things that can be squeezed through a syringe using air pressure. I personally have used it to print little chocolate frosting turtles to sit on top of cupcakes for my son’s 2nd birthday. You can see the process: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4178

On another note, people are working on making a tempered chocolate extruder already, here’s one that I thought was interesting: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18017

By: Tara

Tara — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:03:52 +0000

I just started listening to the Spark podcast a couple months ago! I did have a laugh when I heard them talk about printing human tissues. Look at how versatile the technology is, and all Fusella could think about with her one-track mind is dark chocolate! (Note how I cleverly shift the blame to my character…)

By: Dwight Williams

Dwight Williams — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:02:45 +0000

On a related note: have you been listening to Spark over the last year or two? Every so often they revisit this particular branch of "printing" technology. This past week threw me for a minor loop about testing of modifications allowing the "printing" of blood vessel wall tissue derived from stem cells!

By: Maaja

Maaja — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:34:50 +0000

These are great! I wish we had crossed paths more at the Con. I felt like I ran from workshop to workshop… Even skipped a few meals.

By: Tara

Tara — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:24:28 +0000

That’s pretty awesome– thanks for the link! Although molding chocolate does indeed make way more sense than trying to print with it, I’m sure eventually someone will use the technology to make something that will blow all our minds and tickle our taste buds at the same time.

By: Tara

Tara — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:19:13 +0000

Well, I have had the opportunity to try on corsets before (which comes from having been in the SCA), so although the ladies asked, I politely declined. Also, I’m a big wuss.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:32:11 +0000

So, Tara, did YOU try on one of the corsets, and did hubby pull out his wallet?

By: Kevin Riggle

Kevin Riggle — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:56:46 +0000

This article claims that the “world’s first 3D chocolate printer,” developed by the University of Exeter, has just gone on sale, first announced about a year ago. (Though my chocolate-loving friends claim that they have to use pretty low-quality chocolate so that it hardens fast enough to print properly.) I’ve definitely heard of people doing stuff on MakerBots using sugar as the printing medium, though at least in the first test runs they were unsure about the final product’s food safety. That’s all printing sweets directly — it’s straightforward to use MakerBots or CNC mills to make molds for chocolates or objects for molding (that’s how a friend did her TARDIS chocolate mold), and I think some of the homemade CNC mills can even mill chocolate directly. So great minds do indeed think alike.