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Imagine coming down for breakfast. You don't pop a piece of toast in the toaster. You don't boil an egg. You stick a cartridge in a printer. A minute or two goes by. Then you've got a freshly printed banana. And you've got a muffin.

The printed breakfast is several steps closer to reality. This is for the average consumer.

"Food printing may be the 'killer app' of 3D printing." That's according to Hod Lipson. He's led the creation of the new printer.

"It's completely uncharted territory."

Lipson is a professor of mechanical engineering. He works at Columbia University. He has been studying 3D printing for nearly 20 years. He is working on printing things like plastics, metals, electronics and biomaterials. His work on 3D food printing came out of his research on printing complete 3D robots. In theory they could "walk off the printer."

What does it take to achieve something like this? A printer must be able to print with many materials. This must happen at the same time. Lipson experimented with making multi-material printers. He noticed the students in his lab were beginning to use food as a test material.

"They were using cookie dough, cheese and chocolate," he says. "In the beginning, it was sort of a frivolous thing. But when people came to the lab and looked at it, they actually got really excited by the food printing."

Lipson and his team began to take a more serious look at just what they could do with food. There are two basic approaches to 3D food printing. The first involves using powders. They are bound together. This happens during the printing process. It uses a liquid such as water. The second approach is extrusion-based. It uses syringes. They deposit gels or pastes in specific locations.

Lipson's prototype involves an infrared cooking element. It cooks various parts of the printed product at specific times.

"We've used all kinds of materials, with different levels of success," Lipson says.

"Sometimes the materials are conventional. Cream cheese is something students like to work with a lot."

They've also recently collaborated with a New York culinary school. They let chefs play around with the prototype.

"They kind of broke the machine by really pushing it to its limits," Lipson says.

"One thing we've learned is printing in cream cheese is very easy. But printing in polenta and beets is very hard. It has these granules in it. So from an engineering standpoint it's much more challenging."

It's also difficult to predict how different foods will fare when combined. It's easy enough to create recipes based on single items like chocolate. Those properties are well-established. But when you start to mix things together the mixtures may have much more complex behaviors.

Another challenge is figuring out when to cook what during the printing process. If you're printing a pyramid of salmon and mashed potatoes, the salmon and the potatoes will need very different cooking times and temperatures. The team is tackling this problem with software design.

The printer Lipson's team has made is not the only food printer to be developed in recent years. There are products like Hershey's chocolate-printing CocoJet. The Magic Candy Factory has its 3D gummy printer. They are both for single-ingredients. This limits their use for the general public. Lipson's printer is unique. It is able to handle many ingredients at once. And it can cook them as it goes.

Lipson sees the printer as having two main uses for consumers. First, it could be a specialty appliance. It would be a tool for cooking novel foods. These are foods difficult to achieve by any other process. You could print a complex pastry designed by someone in Japan. Or you could print a recipe you'd never have the expertise or equipment to make by hand.

Lipson says he could imagine digital recipes going viral.

The second use is about health and targeted nutrition. People are already increasingly interested in personal biometrics. This includes tracking their blood pressure. It includes tracking their pulse. It also includes tracking calorie burn and more. People use cell phones and computers to do this.

In the future, it may be possible to track your own health. This could be done in much greater detail. This could include your blood sugar. It could include your calcium needs or your current vitamin D level. The printer could then respond to those details. It would print a customized meal. It could be produced from a cartridge of ingredients.

"Imagine a world where the breakfast that you eat has exactly what you need that day,"Lipson says. "Your muffin has, say, a little less sugar, a little more calcium."

When might the printer be available to consumers? Lipson says it's more a business challenge than a technology one.

"How do you get FDA approval? How do you sell the cartridges? Who owns the recipe? How do you make money off this?"

"It's a completely new way of thinking about food. It's very radical."

A recent redesign of the prototype may bring the product closer to being something the average consumer would accept. Previous versions of the printer were very high-tech. They were full of tubes and sticking-out nozzles. People had a hard time imagining it on their kitchen counters.

Then Drim Stokhuijzen completely redesigned the machine. He is an industrial designer. He gave it the sleek look of a high-end coffee maker.

"His design is so beautiful people are saying for the first time, 'oh, I can see the appeal of food printing, this is something I might actually use,'" Lipson says.

Lipson doesn't think 3D food printing will replace other cooking techniques. But he does think it will change the kitchen.
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/junior/3d-print-your-own-breakfast/

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Imagine coming down for breakfast. You don't pop a piece of toast in the toaster. You don't boil an egg. You stick a cartridge in a printer. A minute or two goes by. Then you've got a freshly printed banana. And you've got a muffin. The printed breakfast is several steps closer to reality.

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As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students. Tween Tribune has been a valued educational brand of Smithsonian magazine, and we appreciate your continued support.

Though the Girl Scouts of the USA initially declared itself a space for all girls, the reality was different for girls of color

Erin Blakemore

Get Smithsonian Educational Resources

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As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students. Tween Tribune has been a valued educational brand of Smithsonian magazine, and we appreciate your continued support.

Though the Girl Scouts of the USA initially declared itself a space for all girls, the reality was different for girls of color

Erin Blakemore

Get Smithsonian Educational Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students. Tween Tribune has been a valued educational brand of Smithsonian magazine, and we appreciate your continued support.

Though the Girl Scouts of the USA initially declared itself a space for all girls, the reality was different for girls of color

Erin Blakemore

Get Smithsonian Educational Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students.

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Modern commercial aviation is really safe. Still, things could always be safer. Right? That's the thinking behind an odd-looking plane design. It was dreamed up by Vladimir Tatarenko. It was posted on YouTube. He was reported to be a Ukrainian aviation engineer. The design is for a detachable airliner cabin. It would fall away from the wings, engine and cockpit in case of an accident. It could land safely with parachutes. Critics say the design would not be cost effective. But the idea of parachuting away from certain doom no doubt appeals to nervous flyers.

Tatarenko's detachable cabin is far from the only wild plane design to emerge in recent years. Here are some of the strangest aviation ideas in recent history.
Double-Decker Seating
In 2015, Airbus filed a patent for a design for a double-decker cabin seating arrangement. Passengers would literally sit one on top of the other. The upper-tier passengers would climb steps or a small ladder to reach their seats. It was referred to as "mezzanine seating." The inventors claim it "still provides a high level of comfort for the passengers using the seat arrangement." Those of us who routinely fly economy class may argue with the word "still." The design does have some advantages. At least some of the seats would be able to recline to 180 degrees. But the idea of climbing a ladder during turbulence seems shaky.
Detachable Cabins for Fast Turnaround Times
This patent was awarded to Airbus. It is also for a detachable cabin. But unlike Tatarenko's, Airbus's concept is for efficiency. It is not for safety. Passengers would simply board a ready cabin. They wouldn't have to wait for a flight to arrive, deplane and be cleaned. The cabin would be snapped into the plane's body as soon as it was ready. When the plane reached its destination, the cabin would be detached. This would allow for immediate deplaning. There may be different cabins with different kinds of seating or levels of luxury. These could be used for flights of different lengths or destinations.
Windowless Cockpits
For ideal aerodynamics, airplane noses should be long. They should be pointy. But there's the whole "pilots have to fit in the cockpit" problem. Well, what if the cockpit didn't have to go in the nose of the plane? That's part of the thinking behind this Airbus patent application. It proposes replacing the plane's windshield with a digital viewing surface. Without a windshield, there's no reason the cockpit needs to go in the front of the plane. It could go in the belly of the plane, or even in the tail.
Nap Straps
If you think Airbus is the only company in the strange patents contest, it's not. Boeing's got its own doozy of an entry, filed in 2013. With this invention, passengers looking for a nap can find an "upright sleep system." It is tucked into a backpack beneath their seat. The system includes a head and chest cushion. It also includes slings to support the arms. These are all attached to the seat with straps. It allows the passenger to recline leaning forward. In action, the whole thing somewhat resembles a traction device for someone who's been in a terrible accident. But we won't knock it until we've tried it. It can hardly be worse than those inflatable doughnut-shaped pillows.
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/detachable-airplane-cabin-and-other-strange-aviation-ideas/

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A detachable airplane cabin and other strange aviation ideas

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Modern commercial aviation is really safe. Still, things could always be safer. Right? That's the thinking behind an odd-looking plane design. It was dreamed up by Vladimir Tatarenko. It was posted on YouTube. He was reported to be a Ukrainian aviation engineer. The design is for a detachable airliner cabin.

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Technology and science have the power to transform lives - to take humankind where no one has gone before, effect change, and better the Earth and beyond.

But the current cohort of young people, so far the most technologically integrated generation, have the potential to use technology for good or for harm.

As cities in North America and Britain prepare to play host to We Day - one of the world's largest forums for youth empowerment - global leaders and role models, such as Canadian space robotics expert and motivational speaker Natalie Panek, are focused on helping get the message across that "it's cool to care."

Panek and others aim to help young people, and especially women, embrace and channel technology for good.

"So much positive change can come from harnessing innovation and technology through the imagination of youth - it can open their minds, show them the power of what they can achieve to work toward a positive future," says Panek, a 29-year-old aerospace engineer at MDA Robotics and Automation in Brampton, Ont., a unit of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., of Canadarm fame.

Panek will bring her message of technological empowerment - among the many themes that will be addressed by motivational speakers - to tens of thousands of youth at Toronto's Air Canada Centre on Oct. 2 for the worldwide launch of We Day.

She is a University of Calgary graduate whose work helping build robotic arms that repair and refuel satellites is part of a sustainable approach to technology.

"We have all these satellites orbiting the Earth we rely on in our daily lives, and when they break down, they remain up there as space junk usually - instead of letting these satellites become space junk, we would refuel and repair them to be reused," Panek says.

"The idea is to extend our care of the Earth into orbit and beyond to be more sustainable and responsible about how we explore," says Panek, whose educational tools include the website thePanekRoom.com, a personal blog and a resources directory for women in science, engineering and technology.

The middle of three children, she was weaned on nature - her family got her into camping, hunting and hiking at a young age, kickstarting her "love of exploration and curiosity of the world around us" and her dream of becoming an astronaut.

One of her early role models was a female high-school physics teacher. Panek was one of just two female students in her class of about 35. "She challenged and motivated us and inspired us to believe you can be an intelligent woman and be challenging," Panek says.

As a University of Calgary undergrad, she helped build and drive a solar-powered car across North America as part of a competition with other schools. She interned twice at NASA - at the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Washington in 2008 and the Ames Research Center in 2009 - and also has her private pilot's licence.

"I kind of just fell into speaking publicly. I spoke at a youth conference in Toronto in 2012, stressing the message about empowering women in technology ... and the feedback was great," Panek says.

"The idea was to have them listen to a female speaker who had driven a solar-powered car across North America, and had their pilot's licence and worked on robotics at NASA, and to visually see someone in that position at an age somewhat close to them and working on their career.

"You can't be what you can't see."

For all its awe-inspiring impact, technology's potential hazards, such as cyberbullying and cybercrimes, also need to be addressed. One of the best ways to do that is through education, say experts.

Although not involved in We Day, University of Toronto touch technology researcher Rhonda McEwen and Steve Thurbide, manager of science education at the Discovery Centre in Halifax, are among those working to shape young people's positive use of technology.

McEwen's lectures and research focus on technologies such as computer tablets and cellphones and how they can be used as helpful tools, for instance for schoolchildren with autism, or in combatting cyberbullying, cybercrimes and youth isolation.

No matter how tech savvy a child seems, "they need to be taught about how to use technology," McEwen warns.

"There's a pervasive misunderstanding that they are digital natives, that they are natively better at technology because they're younger and have come up with it as their life was forming, and they were intuitively born for this technology," says McEwen, a professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at U of T's Mississauga campus, and at the downtown faculty of information.

"A lot of my work shows that's not necessarily true at all, and they need to be taught what happens to data ... and literacy in the sense of, 'How do I question what I'm looking at and taking in, how do I understand credibility of information, what happens to me online in terms of my digital presence?'

"They're told that being socially connected is very important, but with that rapid ability to connect from one to many people, you have the ability to hurt ... and that the ability to retract, and go back and fix a wrong is almost eliminated in this world - you don't have the ability to take that Facebook post back."

McEwen says youth are more inclined to use technology positively if they're taught the science behind it - such as the potential health dangers of the electromagnetic frequencies on cellphones. "It's about getting as much information to them as possible, so they can make better choices."

Thurbide, of the Discovery Centre, a science centre with exhibits, live science shows, workshops and community outreach, stresses the importance of getting young people involved in fun hands-on projects, and even making them a family affair.

For example, the Discovery Centre's programs have included a series of Digital Discovery Camps this year where 10 to 15 year olds learned about robotics using Lego NXT technology and new Lego EV3 models.

"We had a couple of campers, and, all joking aside, they were probably on a level with the technology background and experience of our counsellors," says Thurbide.

"We were absolutely amazed with the kids who had previous experience using the next wave of robotics, and a lot of it starts at home - parents being active with their kids' lives and not just giving them a cellphone or computer, and saying, 'Take this and go into a corner.'"

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Technology and science have the power to transform lives - to take humankind where no one has gone before, effect change, and better the Earth and beyond. But the current cohort of young people, so far the most technologically integrated generation, have the potential to use technology for good or for harm.

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