Dust To Dust And Jello To Jello: The Journey Of A Very Strange Knife

How do you feel about Jello? It’s alright tasting, but it’s much more about how jiggly it gets. Nobody — probably — would eat Jello if it was a hard candy. It would quickly become restricted to the bowl of strawberry candies that Grandma always seems to have. How do you feel about knives? We’re on Hackaday. Most everybody here has at least a couple in their toolbox. Some of them have more than a couple, including the whetstones to sharpen them. It’s safe to say they probably like the concept. Now, what if you could combine the two? Two favorites are always better than one. A Jello knife, while seemingly impossible, would be rather impressive, and [kiwami japan] does just that, as well as so much more.

He starts with a couple dozen adorable Jello snacks (Jellos?), and from the wiggliest of foundations, he builds a masterpiece. The first order of business is to eat a couple of the stragglers while he decides what to do with the rest. A bit of blue food coloring, some more gelatin, and the help of several cow shaped bowls and pitchers later, [kiwami japan] has melted the survivors down and gotten a flat sheet. Once sufficiently cooled, it makes a nice knife-shaped Jello blank.

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Capacitive Christmas Organ With Living Lenses Of Slappable Light

We’ve seen capacitive touch organs manifest in pumpkin form. Though they are a neat idea, there’s something about groping a bunch of gourds that stirs a feeling of mild discomfort every time I play one. [mcreed] probably felt the same way and thus created this light-up Jello organ, so he can jiggle-slap Christmas carols, removing any sense of doubt that touching food to play music is weird…

This take on the capacitive tone producing instrument makes clever use of the transparent properties of Jello as well as its trademark wiggling. [mcreed] fills several small mold forms with festively colored strawberry and lime mix. One end of a wire connection is submerged in the liquid of each cup before it has a chance to solidify along with a bright LED. Once chilled and hardened, the gelatinous mass acts as a giant light emitting contact pad. An Arduino is the micro-controller used for the brain, assigning each Jello shape with a corresponding note. By holding onto a grounding wire and completing the acting circuit, one can play songs on the Jello by poking, spanking, or grazing the mounds.

Though I’m not entirely sure if the video is Jello propaganda or not, the idea is applaudable. I prompt anyone to come up with a more absurd item to use for a capacitive organ (zucchinis have already been done).

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