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when no one is watching. Cake frosting quickly became the most commonly
used sacriicial material for 3D printing projects.
My students and I weren't the only people venturing into 3D food printing.
Several years ago when we launched Fab@home into the world, we expected
that people would build printers and use them to print plastic parts or perhaps
toys or useful things for their homes. Instead, Fab@home users wrote to us to
share stories of printing food. Noy Schaal, a high school student in Louisville,
Kentucky, was one of the earliest users of Fab@home when we open sourced the
machine designs in 2006. With her father Maor, Noy built her own Fab@home
printer and then customized it, adding a heated chocolate extruder.
The printed chocolate that won high school
student Noy Schaal irst prize at a high school
science fair in 2006
For several weeks the Schaals experimented with different temperatures
and printing nozzles. Their efforts paid off at the state's high school science
fair where Noy designed and printed chocolate pieces shaped like the state of
Kentucky, securing irst prize.
Like a computer-guided frosting bag
Printing even simple food paste is a thorough workout in applied food engi-
neering. Like many of life's pastimes, 3D printing food is a lot harder than it
looks. Printed food must be made with just the right application of mechanical
force, plus a well-designed digital “recipe” using raw ingredients of the correct
consistency. Raw ingredients must be soft enough to push through a syringe
tip, yet stiff enough to hold a shape after being printed. Add to that the chal-
lenge of dealing with each foodstuff's unique material properties, different
temperature tolerances and different cooking methods.
