MIT Students Create 3D Printer That Can Print Ice Cream

We’ve seen 3D printers do all sorts of things, ranging from printing bones, to printing gadgets, and to some extent even food, but it looks like 3D printers will soon be able to start printing ice cream! Yes, you read that right, soon everyone’s favorite frozen confectionary will be 3D printed, although apart from the ability to customize it, we’re not sure if it will be an improvement.

The idea to 3D print ice cream was cooked up by a group of MIT students – Kyle Hounsell, Kristine Bunker, and David Donghyun Kim. The printer was actually created as part of their class project in additive manufacturing, and basically what they did was they took a Cuisinart soft-serve ice cream machine and attached it to a Solidoodle 3D printer.

Now in order for the students to maintain the shape of the ice cream they were trying to print, they had to pump a continuous stream of liquid nitrogen over the ice cream to keep it from melting as it laid out shapes layer by layer.

It’s a pretty awesome and fun idea although like we said, we’re not sure if there is a point to 3D printing ice cream other than for the novelty of it, as you can see in the image above where they managed to create an ice cream shaped like a star. There are still some modifications needed before it can be used commercially, but it’s still a fun idea nonetheless.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: 3D Printing, food