A New Era In Robotics Has Arrived!

Edible Robotics represents a sea change in thinking and action regarding our relationship with our friendly robot servants. Our goal in exploring this new territory is to report back from the frontier with our discoveries and observations in the hopes that others who follow will not fall prey to pitfalls we've stumbled across in the interest of science.

NanoKrispies

We explored two intriguing avenues in edible robotics. The first was food as prey. More specifically automatically generated nanoscale Von Neumann machines that would foster exercise among our youth while providing valuable nutrition. Our medium was based on the traditional formulas for Rice Krispie Treats due to the flexible and organic nature of the substrate. Robotic enthusiasts who are aware of the burgeoning field of claytronics should take note that this effort made significant advances that others should surely build upon. We modified the basic formula with molecular bio-activated iMilk and were able to demonstrate Turing level one consciousness. There are certainly bugs that you should be aware of prior to embarking on this particular edible robotics journey. We found that children who were not able to catch and eat the NanoKrispie characters within the first half hour were themselves captured by the then horde of NanoKrispies and devoured. Although this may be considered a novel darwinnowing feature of the product we are concerned that the introduction of such a feature would require substantial marketing and preparation. Further combining the resultant admixture with Microsoft or Sony gengeneered fruits may cause the accelerated heat death of the universe. Tread wisely my friends in this pursuit.

NanoKrispies Packaging


Edible Robotics How-To

Due to a fateful laboratory accident (if you are a survivor please contact us immediately to be reprogrammed before you get too soggy) we have very little footage of our NanoKrispie efforts. However our second effort was well documented. Cucumbers turned out to be a very promising and entirely organic robotic substrate. We attribute the success of cucumber-based robotics to the strong exosurface and self-lubricating properties of the garden variety seedless cucumber. Click on the link below to download a 5-minute film on how to make your own edible cucumber robot.

Project Materials

  • 5 - Seedless Cucumbers
  • 1 - Hemisphere of Edam (or similar) Cheese
  • 1 - Assortment of Greens
  • 1 - Serving Platter
  • 1 - 1"x24"x24" Sheet of Black Foamcore
  • 15 - Rubber Bands
  • 1 - Paperclip
  • 1 - Heavy Duty Hobby Servo
  • 1 - Extra-long Servo Control Arm
  • 1 - CMU Canary (or similar sensing and control platform)

Tools

  • 1 - Apple Coring Tool
  • 1 - Knife
  • 1 - Cordon Bleu Chef willing to lose a few fingers to science

Project Gallery

View All Edible Robotic Pics View More Robo250 Pics View Even More Robo250 Pics

Archive and Compendium of Edible Robotics Raw Materials and their structural and tensile properties for the weekend food adventurer

  1. Licorice - seemed like a good idea for tendons and other actuator elements... strong at first, but brittle after a few hours
  2. Granola Bars and Pirouettes - Although promising at first for structural elements (the pirouettes were of course the axles), they were ultimate too brittle
  3. Bread and String Cheese - This has potential as a pre-molded, cook and articulate, material, but I'm not very learned in the art of bread and string cheese is just not strong enough to act as true actuators
  4. Apples - Not enough structural surface area to really handle hinging of components
  5. Cucumbers - Perfect as both structure, self-lubricating tendon channel, tendon, and hinging element... watch the film to learn more!
  6. Rice Krispies - Although initially difficult to work with (you have to spray PAM on your fingers) it turns out to be the perfect organic surface modeling material and with the proper internal components we believe that it could lead to a renaissance in edible robotics... unfortunately much of the development here was eaten before it could see the light of day but if you watch carefully you may see some of the results in the film as well!