by Sydney Dahl
Haven’t you always dreamt of having miniature, edible figurines of yourself? Yeah, neither did I. At least not until this possibility became a reality in one of my classes last quarter. Taking ME480 (one of our AM classes) with Professor Storti opened up endless possibilities for creative gifts… assuming your friends would enjoy, quite literally, biting your head off (like mine did).
Food friendly molds were used to create the gummi and chocolate figurines. A two sided mold set was required to create the figurine of a single person (one for the front and one for the back, which are put together to create a mold for the full body.)
The process to create these molds began by 3D scanning ourselves using the Microsoft 360 Kinect scanner in the lab and ReconstructMe software (. These scans were then imported into Rhino3D to create the inverse of the desired final molds. Once the 3D model was completed, they were printed on the 3DP powder printer, also located in the lab. Below you can see the mold parts — one intact and another that was not so lucky. These molds halves together create the full 3D figurine. Both of the parts below have been waxed after being printed on the 3DP powder printer.
A food-grade Silicone mold material was then poured into these 3DP printed parts to create the final molds. The final molds (the pink squares below) were used to create various kinds of edible figurines. First up: melted gummi bears.
The first run of gummi bears was not very successful. Without using any type of non-stick spray the gummi figurines were really hard to remove from the molds and looked more like an elongated Stretch Armstrong than a person. The next round produced much more desirable results. For this more successful batch, some standard non-stick spray was used before putting in the melted gummi bears and the molds were allowed to set overnight.
Next up: chocolate. Only one chocolate mold was attempted and it cracked, unfortunately. Others in the class were more successful in their chocolate casting endeavors than us. Below you can see some of the attempted casted figurines. Helpful hint: Don’t leave these out on the counter when your roommates are hungry.
Great! Thanks for using ReconstructMe!
Great! Thanks for using ReconstructMe!
[…] a problem. Who wants to bite off their own head? The class recently experimented with creating gummi versions of themselves with 3d scanning and 3d printing. Using ReconstructMe to scan themselves, the […]
[…] a problem. Who wants to bite off their own head? The class recently experimented with creating gummi versions of themselves with 3d scanning and 3d printing. Using ReconstructMe to scan themselves, the […]
What a weird concept, who wants to eat themselves!
I don’t think the idea is for you to eat yourself… perhaps you give the gummi to someone else… or perhaps you make molds for
something else.
What a weird concept, who wants to eat themselves!
I don’t think the idea is for you to eat yourself… perhaps you give the gummi to someone else… or perhaps you make molds for
something else.
[…] file and feed the design file to a 3D printer, you can print out custom molds and make a … Gummi Me. Or a Gummi You. […]
[…] file and feed the design file to a 3D printer, you can print out custom molds and make a … Gummi Me. Or a Gummi You. […]
[…] file. Next, you feed the design file to a 3D printer to print out custom molds to make a … Gummi Me. Or a Gummi […]
[…] file. Next, you feed the design file to a 3D printer to print out custom molds to make a … Gummi Me. Or a Gummi […]
[…] file. Next, you feed the design file to a 3D printer to print out custom molds to make a … Gummi Me. Or a Gummi […]
[…] file. Next, you feed the design file to a 3D printer to print out custom molds to make a … Gummi Me. Or a Gummi […]
The way Gummi bears and other jelly sweets are made commercially is in a mold made of corn starch. You could easily replicate this at home i think. Your 3D object is push into a bed of starch leaving a mold impression and then the mould mixture is poured in and left to set. ( rthe only downside is they are one sided casts with a flat side) the finished object is then shaken out of the poweder. In the food industry these objects are either left with a powder coating ( jelly babies for example) go off to be coated with sugar or other flavourings or tumbled in a light vegatable oil to remove the cornstarch and bring them to a glossy finish
The way Gummi bears and other jelly sweets are made commercially is in a mold made of corn starch. You could easily replicate this at home i think. Your 3D object is push into a bed of starch leaving a mold impression and then the mould mixture is poured in and left to set. ( rthe only downside is they are one sided casts with a flat side) the finished object is then shaken out of the poweder. In the food industry these objects are either left with a powder coating ( jelly babies for example) go off to be coated with sugar or other flavourings or tumbled in a light vegatable oil to remove the cornstarch and bring them to a glossy finish