A series of food items along the bottom of the frame including an unidentified grey block, an almond, a food supplement capsule, a square of seaweed, a square of beeswax, and a crumpled up piece of gold foil. At the top of the image is a fully assembled battery with electrodes sticking out the ends of a block of beeswax and a half finished battery with the nori separator visible.

A Delicious Advancement In Battery Tech

April 22, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 2 Comments

Electronics have been sent to some pretty extreme environments, but inside a living host is a particularly tricky set of conditions, especially if you don’t want to damage the organism ingesting the equipment. One step in that direction could be an edible battery cell. (via Electrek)

Developed by scientists at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, this new cell is made from food additives and ingredients to skirt any nasty side effects one might experience from ingesting a less palatable battery chemistry like NiCd. A riboflavin anode is coupled with a quercetin cathode, both with activated carbon to increase conductivity. Encapsulated in beeswax and with a separator made of nori algae, the battery is completely non-toxic.

The cell generates a modest 0.65V with a max sustained current of 48 µA for 12 min, but it shows promise as a power source for ingestible medical sensors, even if it won’t be powering your next mobile Raspberry Pi project. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen edible electronics; check out this screaming chocolate rabbit or robots made of candy.

a microwave-oven with animated wave diagram

Dive Into The Microwaves, The Water’s Dipolar

March 27, 2023 by Michael Shaub 21 Comments

When the microwave oven started to gain popularity in the 60s and 70s, supporters and critics alike predicted that it would usher in the end of cooking as we knew it. Obviously that never quite happened, but not because the technology didn’t work as intended. Even today, this versatile kitchen appliance seems to employ some magic to caffeinate or feed a growing hacker in no time flat. So, how exactly does this modern marvel work?

That’s exactly what [Electronoob] set out to explain in his latest video. After previously taking apart a microwave and showing off the magnetron within he’s back with a clear explanation of how these devices work.

Maybe you have no idea, or have heard something vague about the water in the food wiggling in response to the microwaves. Do you know why microwaves and not some other part of the electromagnetic spectrum? Why the food spins on a platter? How the size of the oven relative to the wavelength affects the efficiency of its cooking? We didn’t, and think the video is a great primer on all of this and more.

Here at Hackaday, we sure love using and abusing microwave ovens. From upgrading them with voice control back in 2013, to turning them into UV curing chambers and mini foundries, to the limitless possibilities for the transformers and magnetrons that await us inside, we just can’t get enough. (this is our 82nd article tagged with microwave!)

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CMOS Oscillator Circuit Gets An Eatable Input

September 24, 2022 by Lee Wilkins 9 Comments

In interaction designer [Leonardo Amico]’s work Processing Decay, lettuce is used as an input to produce sound as an element within a CMOS circuit.

We’ve all seen lemons and potatoes doubling in science-fairs as edible batteries, but lettuce is something else. [Leandro]’s circuit uses alligator clips to insert lettuce into oscillators in this audio generating circuit — we think they’re behaving like resistors. Without refrigeration, the resistance of the lettuce changes, and so does the oscillation in the circuit. In a matter of hours, days, and weeks the cells degrades slowly, modulating the system and its sonic output. What a way to make music!

This hack isn’t the freshest — the video dates from nine years ago — but this is the first lettuce circuit we’ve seen. Of course, we love other food hacks like these multi-wavelength lasers used to cook 3D-printed chicken, or maybe the circuit can make use of this neural net detecting fruit ripeness.

The Cheat Way To Perfectly Split An Oreo

August 31, 2022 by Lewin Day 28 Comments

Believe it or not, much research has been done in how to perfectly split Oreos with an even amount of cream on both sides. Early studies suggested it simply wasn’t possible, with one side always getting the majority of the cream. However, [Ian Charnas] has now found a sneaky workaround.

First attempts involved heating in a microwave or chilling the cookies in the freezer. Neither helped in the slightest. A vacuum chamber only served to delaminate the cream from both sides of the cookie entirely, while water jet cutting made an awful mess.

[Ian] ended up realizing that crack propagation could be used to prepare Oreos for a perfect split. A knife was used to score a groove all around the cream layer, right down the middle. The Oreos were then frozen, turning the cream effectively solid. When the Oreo is then twisted, the groove serves as a starting point for a crack that propagates across the surface, splitting the cream neatly between both halves.

[Ian] took things further by building a 3D-printed lathe that grooves Oreos using a sterilized scalpel blade. This allows cookies to be quickly prepped for a perfect split. However, you are left eating frozen Oreos at the end of it, with some sacrifices to freshness.

It’s a neat way to approach the Oreo splitting problem, even if it’s only one step removed from simply using a knife. We’ve seen [Ian]’s work before, too, in the form of the radioactively-powered Game Boy. Video after the break.

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Track Those Leftovers With This Little Timer

May 1, 2022 by Jenny List 27 Comments

We’ve all at some point in our lives opened the fridge door and immediately wished we hadn’t. A miasma of stench envelops us as we discover that last Saturday’s leftovers have been forgotten, and have gone off. If only we had some way to keep track of such things, to avoid such a stench-laden moment. Step forward [ThinkLearnDo], with a little timer designed for exactly that purpose.

The operation is simple enough, press the button and place the unit on top of the container with the leftovers in it. If you haven’t eaten the leftovers within a week, the LED will start blinking. The blink is a subtle reminder to deal with the old food before it becomes a problem.

Onboard is a Holtek HT68F001 microcontroller with a coin cell for power, not much else is needed. The Holtek is an unusual choice, one of several brands of super-inexpensive Chinese microcontrollers we see less commonly than ATmegas and STM32s. This is exactly the place where such a minimal computer fits perfectly: a way to add a little bit of smarts to a very cheap item with minimal strain on the BoM.

If these chips interest you, a while back we covered a run-down of the different families including the Holtek and the famous 3-cent Padauk chips.

The Mouth-Watering World Of NIST Standard Foods

December 23, 2020 by Lewin Day 48 Comments

The National Institute Of Standards and Technology was founded on March 3, 1901 as the National Bureau of Standards, taking on its current moniker in 1988. The organisation is charged by the government with ensuring the uniformity of weights and measures across the United States, and generally helping out industry, academia and other users wherever some kind of overarching standard is required.

One of the primary jobs of NIST is the production and sale of Standard Reference Materials, or SRMs. These cover a huge variety of applications, from steel samples to concrete and geological materials like clay. However, there are also edible SRMS, too. Yes, you can purchase yourself a jar of NIST Standard Peanut Butter, though you might find the price uncompetitive with the varieties at your local supermarket. Let’s dive into why these “standard” foods exist, and see what’s available from the shelves of our favourite national standards institute. Continue reading “The Mouth-Watering World Of NIST Standard Foods” →

Food Safe Printing Techniques

December 7, 2020 by Al Williams 10 Comments

One thing that always provokes spirited debate around the Hackaday bunker is just how dangerous is it to use 3D printed plastic in contact with food. We mostly agree it isn’t a good thing, but we also know some people do it regularly and they don’t drop dead instantly, either. [Jakub] decided to do some testing and make some recommendations. There’s even a video explaining the results.

Unlike a lot of what we’ve read about this topic in the past, [Jakub’s] post is well-researched and does actual testing including growing bacteria cultures from cups used for milk. He starts out identifying the EU and US regulations about what you can call food-grade. There’s also recognition that while a base plastic might be safe for contact with food, there’s no way to know exactly what additives and other things are in the plastic to change its properties and color.

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