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New Fellowship on 3d food printing design

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2017 is not waiting for anyone! March is already here and I am starting a new Fellowship…. How exciting! It’s funny because before this one I have only been part of one previous fellowship as an AiR at Pier9. So when I got the chance to enroll in a new one I did not hesitate even for a second!

I am joining the first cohort for the Science Sandbox fellowship @NewLab. And of course…my topic could not be anything else than 3d food printing related!!! hands up if you are feeling me on this one!!!! But what topic I will be working on???

I am gonna take the next 3 months to do research on 3d food printing design.

3d food printing design should be as as using a spoon or reading from a menu.

That is the whooole scope. For sure not an easy one, but any exploration towards that goal will give already good insights.

I will be mainly focus on talking to a lot of people and explore tangible and virtual design tools. Of course all the design tests will be actually printed. What links with my second goal. GET TO PRINT A LOT WITH MY NEW ZCORP! I expect to improve the way I sieve the powder, how to clean the prints but specially making for reliable prints and understanding the limits.

During this week#0, I looked into better ways to sieve the powder. First I wanted to buy a machine for it, later I wanted and ultrasonic sifter. Eventually I bought a couple of flour sifters, and tested them (cheap approach). It does the job. It’s better than the ring sifter, but it is a tough and long process, at least 15 minutes for 4 inches. Happy with it so far. Will need more tests!!!

Week#1 coming next!

 

Moving to New Lab

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March, 2017 already. Time flies, faster than we would like but, well, that one thing its the same for all of us. This time our weekly adventure is moving the ZCorp printer, again. To New Lab!

I have been recently accepted as a Fellow there, so I get to have more space for my experiments. Thanks a lot to TK from the Thai Bird for helping me out and my wife to!

Moving a 100 kilos machine it has some challenges, specially when there is no elevator involved. But lessons learned from the first time.

  • Tag and sort all the screws
  • Disassemble E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G (specially the piston walls)
  • Take your time

Luckily everything went well and the printer has already a new home. Time to start working on some new projects! Any suggestions?

Visiting the CIA

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Great, awesome, lets get for it. As much as I wanted, we needed to be respecful with the PR team at the CIA, so no videos but, AWESOME PICTURES instead of our visit at the CIA (culinary institute of america).

First and foremost thanks again and again to Liam McCleod, for opening to us the doors of the CIA. Liam is the 3d printing lab director and also manager for consulting client relationships at the CIA. With a culinary and food science background. Liam is the type of incredible people that we love to meet in our 3d food printing adventures.

First stop and the most obvious was the 3d printing lab.

Founded after the CIA dean got to meet the sugar wizards from The Sugar Lab at a culinary show.

Obviously got impressed and needed to bring this amazing tech to his school.

The lab has two main 3d food printer. A ChefJet and a ChefJet pro, with their main difference being th Pro being capable of printing with colors and with a larger printing volume.

Man I love this printers, with all their stainless steel and binder tubes that makes them look sweet.

Liam explained that the interest of the CIA on 3d food printing has been helping to set a standard around a technology with a few very very references and also looking for ways on how it can be used to explore customized foods with proper nutrition balance.

They also have a 3d printer from 3d systems and a haptic mouse, that I was happy to try for first time!

Liam got to explain us more about the testing methodologies that they are following at the lab towards yielding different powder mixtures both sweet and savory. And most important trying to understand through a data the results behind each mix towards.

I could recognize the wasabi powder mix that we ALMOST got to try a year ago at the Culinary Visit that we did. Jason we missed that one.

Following with our visit we got to tour around the incredible CIA facilities, from wing to win we went from yeasty to chocolate aromas. The whole school is gorgeous. Walking through it made me want to go back to school. It has this old school well preserved vibe that makes it really hard not to WOOOW every 5 seconds. At some point I felt like I was the Xavier Institute from the xmen. Truly amazing.

Within the campus there are several restaurants, local American cuisine, Italian, French, but my choice for the day was Apple pie bakery. My roommate a graduated student from the CIA told me to go there and enjoy. Oh boy I did. Pretzel with mac and cheese, carrot ginger soup, jalapeno muffin, blueberry muffin, and a danish some of the treats that I got.
Remarkable location and scenic views around the campus.

Its was an amazing visit that I hope to repeat in the future!