3DPrinting Food - Resarch Project

Date: May - July 2021

WHY

In the near future, all food that we consume will be digitally produced and delivered. The same way that music production and delivery went from analogue to digital, agriculture and cooking will follow the same trend. At Creative Machines Lab, we are exploring the capabilities of 3D printers in digitizing food production.

WHAT

We built a powder dispensing tool that allows our machine to expand its capabilities by being able to print with solid condiments. This is a novel mechanism that was designed around constraints of the already existing food 3D printer (initially designed only for 'fluids').

HOW

It all started with a set of functional requirements based on design constraints - initial sketches, calculations and prototypes led us down the route of using a rack and pinion for our linear to rotary mechanism. From there, it was constant prototyping (100+ in 3 months), root cause analysis and thinking about design engineering fundamentals to come up with a robust working prototype and test it.

Collaborators:

Rohin Modi; Mary Zaradich; Wasif Mukaddam; Uttara Ravi; Jonathan Blutinger; Dr. Hod Lipson