The Fabaroni

Ok, we've heard of expensive media for 3D printers, paper, sugar and other wacky stuff going in "raw" and coming out as usable 3D objects. Today it's pasta dough! The Fabaroni home-made 3D printer is capable of printing 3D objects with a moving head, much like other inexpensive 3D printers. In fact, it "loosely follows the Fab@Home design". Why pasta? The team investigated eleven different common foods to see which one was most suitable. Results:

Cheese wiz: too soft, took too long to solidify
Chocolate: pretty good viscosity, melted at 90 deg C, took a while to solidify
Chocolate sauce: too saucy, didn't solidify
Marshmellow fluff: too thick and too sticky
Vanilla frosting: too soft
Gummy bears: good viscosity, but takes a while to cool and is stringy
Gummy bears & Chocolate mix: mixture separates
Marzipan: too thick
Oiled marzipan: gross, and terrible consistency
Pasta dough: good consistency, hardens pretty quickly, flows well
Peanut butter: too runny, too oily

And the winner is...PASTA DOUGH for its good structure and speedy drying properties.

Approximate cost of materials: USD$1000, probably the least expensive 3D printer we've seen yet.

Via MIT.edu

Comments

[SocialCritic]

Kewl! I always liked pasta with complex geometry.
although, i guess Orchetti isn't all that complex... must be the sauce ;-) I'm promoting a less exotic fabber - although features of all the food fabs could be combined using this framework.

See: http://www.cubespawn.com

So, sweetened pasta with chocolate sauce, anyone? I guess there are still a few kinks to work out...