Easy-Bake 
Bio-Yarn

A personal Bio-Yarn machine

I think bio-materials would be a more popular  with makers to design with if they weren't so messy to make! This machine could streamline the production of bio-yarn so that I could knit with it. I found a fun algae-string-making activity for kids online and thought if kids of ages 8+ can do it, I should be able to too! 

Bio-polymer Recipe

It included an easy recipe of ingredients you could get off-the-shelf,  varying the ratios will give you different results. I thought it would be fun to design a platform where you could change the raio-controls and choose your additives to customise your yarns.

Polymer  :  Plasticizer  :  Oil  : Solvent 

Alginate  :  Glycerol  :  Olive Oil  : Water 

BioFilm

1 : 2 : 0 : 25

1 : 2 : 12.5

1 : 2 : 50

Bio-Plastic

1 : 1.5 : 1 : 25

1 : 1.5 : 1 : 8

1 : 1.5 : 1 : 33

Bits and Pieces

I exploded the machine I was imagining so that I could see all the parts I would be working with. I also tried to explode the process: from the user customising the yarn, it's communication to the machine, the actions required to produce it, and then the design considerations and post production (e.g. the yarn would have to be dried before it could be used) 

I noted a few design considerations I should make decisions about: 

1. What is a good total volume of the mixing bowl and bath? 
          - What  volume of yarn-mix do I need? 

2. The 'solvent'/water container is so much bigger than the other ingredients 
          - maybe the water should just be measured and poured 
            in seperatel y? 

3. The Calcium bath is currently designed to be seperately mixed. 
         - maybe the calcium should be included as an ingredient
            and the water can be mixed in seperately? 

4. If the water is measured seperately, I like the idea that the machine addresses the complete process - so a measuring cup should be attached. 

5. The drying rack needs to be removable but maybe it should also be plugged into the machine to dry the yarn.

Additives

  • Solid Colour 
  • Thermochromic 
  • Photochromic 
  • Glow Powder 
  • Stretchy 
  • Conductive? Is alginate an appropriate matrix for this?

I was thinking about what additives you might want in your biopolymer. An obvious one is colour, but you might also be interested in more active dyes like a thermochromic dye (I've only recently discovered that you can get these off the shelf. There are probably other non-aesthetic properties that might be interesting like conductivity or stretch but I haven't thought of many and am not sure how to make them happen!

The Parameters

I made a gh script (sorry for the low res. image, you can find the messy script here) and built in the controls that I'd like on the user interface, essentially: 

  • Primary Ingredient Controls: drop down list of options 
  • Additive Controls: on sliders 

All of the ingredients are measured according to volume, this may be a good way to visualise it in grasshopper for the model but I expect it's not the right way for the machine to measure/dispense powders for the mix? I'll have to keep my eye on this as I start designing it. 
The mixing bowl and bath are currently generated from the total volume from the ingredients we've chosen from the controls. But I should really look into how much mix I'd need for my desired yeild. 

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