The Brief
To take the data from an MRI machine brain scan and turn into an edible brain!
Inition’s fourth project in our ‘Future of 3D’ series involved both, cutting-edge and very traditional techniques…
Our Solution
Handily, Inition co-founder Andy Millns had recently had his brain scanned as part of a research project. This meant that we alerady had the data we needed to transform his brain into chocolate. The team set to work; extracting a 3D model from the sliced-image MRI data. This was then then 3D printed on our ZCorp 450 machine. A latex mould of the 3D printed brain was then created, melted chocolate was poured and after a few hours in the fridge, a chocolate brain was revealed! This makes it sound quite simple, but if you want the full details, we created an Instructable here.
The Results
The chocolate brain story was featured in The Telegraph, Mirror, Gizmodo, MSN, laughingsquid, science in society and various other blogs and news outlets.
We won 1st place in the Instructables ‘Make It Real’ challenge and were awarded a 3D printer! There were over 15,000 views on instructables within the first week of going live.
Adrian Covert worte an article in Gizmodo Australia stating, “The edible chocolate brain is perfect for the narcissist in love with their own intellect”
Bethany Hubbard wrote a blog in ‘science in society’ and had mentioned thus, “Inition, a pioneering creative 3D technology and production company has given a new dimension for chocolate lovers. They make the world of Matrix feel not to far off”
Overall, there was a huge positive response and people loved this idea. Rob Leigh wrote an article in Mirror News where he went on giving ideas to chocolate companied to give a different edge to regular chocolate fingers!
This exercise has brought a whole new dimension to the usage of 3D printed models. This technique can be used to 3D print objects sourced from medical imaging data (not just for making chocolate brains!). Inition is very excited to be at the forefront of exploiting the technology in a wide range of areas.
Inition was delighted that our film, ‘How to Eat Your Own (Chocolate!) Brain’ (see above), was selected to be screened at the 5th Annual Imagine Science Film Festival in New York (November 8th-16th, 2012), to help spark the public’s interest in science.