For the next few arts n’ crafts Wednesday classes (and maybe even the 3D printing and laser cutting Friday classes) we’ll be getting ready to make our own Valentine’s Day chocolates. We’ve finally come up with a good group project to use our vacuum forming machine that we built as a group. We’ll be 3D printing, laser cutting, wood working, or even molding from clay to create any shape we want that we want to be made from solid milk chocolate. The idea is simple: create the shape or thing we want, use the vacuum former to slightly melt then form a food safe plastic sheet over our “buck” shapes/objects, then use that plastic as the mold for the melted chocolate to cool and harden into. We’ll also be using sous vide machines (including the ones we built from crock pots and a temperature sensor) to very evenly melt the chocolate to make sure they turn out great.
The experiments will include how to best do the vacuum form shapes, what shapes work best, as well as what the best temperature to use with the sous vide machines to melt the chocolate to work with easiest.
Home made Vacuum Former + 3D printers + laser cutter + wood shop + your creativity and imagination + chocolate = the best science ever? RSVP for the events on our meetup page with the first one this Wednesday January 11 from 7-9 pm: https://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-Makerspace-Florida-USA/events/236711713/
It should look similar to this (found from this same experiment here):
