3D Printer Uses Chocolate For Printing!

Not long ago I talked about a 3D printer called the Solar Sinter that uses sand and solar power to print 3D objects. That was cool and all, but let's face it printing a 3D object with sand is interesting, but those objects would not taste good at all. If you want to print edible 3D shapes what you need is this 3D printer that uses chocolate as the print medium. Yum.

The special chocolate 3D printer was created with funding from the Research Council UK Cross-Research Council Program – Digital Economy. That a huge name, but what it boils down to is this printer was funded because it would allow someone to upload a digital file and create custom chocolates in whatever shape or design they want. The print medium can be changed as well to support printing in non-edible materials.

The team of researchers was led by Dr. Liang Hao and the experiments used chocolate as the medium because the stuff is cheap. I would bet making chocolate shapes also ensures that the staff on the project comes to work as well. The medium is also green since any leftover can be melted and reused or gobbled up. The process can be adapted to other print materials for making things like custom jewelry and more.

[via Inhabitat]