Three MIT students decided that 3D printers just aren’t interesting enough on their own any more. They wanted to design a new type of printer that would really get young kids engaged. What’s more engaging to children than sugary treats? The team got together to develop a new 3d printer that prints ice cream.
The machine is built around a Solidoodle. The Solidoodle is a manufacturer of “accessible” 3d printers. The printer is enclosed inside of a small freezer to keep things cold during the printing process. On top of the machine is a hacked Cuisinart ice cream maker. The machine also contains a canister of liquid nitrogen. The nitrogen is used to blast the cream as it leaves the print head, keeping it frozen for the 15 minute duration of the print.
It sounds like the team ran into trouble with the ice cream melting, even with the liquid nitrogen added. For a single semester project, this isn’t a bad start. Be sure to watch the clip of the machine running below.
I’m pretty sure this won’t work because the ice cream would melt on the heated bed.
Turn off the heated bed and you’d be right ;) /sarcasm
Maybe a peltier cooled bed could work..?
Peltier would be fun. You could cool it while printing and then heat it slightly to help with removal
they should have been running it inside a walk in freezer with a peltier cooled bed.
LOL reminds me of this http://minimumble.thebookofbiff.com/2014/05/30/521-printed/
also a chilled copper plate or other large thermal mass might be better suited for holding the ice-cream
How about printing on a screen suspended above a tub of liquid nitrogen (they have it) or on a bed of dry ice? Also why not just forget the tasty ice cream and print with dough, who wants a chocolate tesseract doughnut?
Solidoodle sounds like something my dog makes when I let her out in the morning…
Quick someone patent the Cooling Chamber.
No need to use liquid hydrogen! Our method is a ‘bit’ more use friendly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfpDI7T7qVQ Here we use the Polyscience Anti-Griddle which is essentially a very well designed Peltier plate.