Based on my own experience, Japanese culture has a flair for transforming the mundane, like an ordinary lunch, into something aesthetically pleasing and down right cute. Yoshihiro Asano, a student at Keiko University, found an automated method for spicing up is bento box lunches, literally and figuratively, by converting his 3D printer into a meal decorator capable of decorating his rice with furikake-based drawings.
Dry furikake seasoning can give otherwise boring bento rice a bit of flavor, with such packets as salmon, sesame seed, pickled plum, or garlic allowing people like Yoshihiro to shake his meals up a bit. Previously, Yoshihiro attempted to make his meals more interesting by using a laser-cut stencil, but found it cumbersome. Inspired by a rice flour paste printing delta bot, Yoshiro designed a specialty extruder for his Solidoodle and wrote a program in Processing for applying the seasoning to his bento boxes in any shape he likes.
As you can see from the video, the software converts images into simple patterns, which are then turned into G-code, telling Lunchbot how to draw the furikake. After placing the rice box into the printer’s build area, Lunchbot executes its program and, if the design calls for it, the bot is directed to pause mid-print, allowing Yoshihiro to replace custom seasoning cartridges, to allow for a multi-flavored, multi-colored meal.
The process of designing his custom furikake plotter was no easy one and the complete details can be found on his blog here. Still a prototype, Lunchbot hints at a future in which personally-tailored meals will be fabricated on-demand, as per an eater’s dietary needs and whims. The full realization of such a meal-making process may first be demonstrated by Biozoon and the Dutch research organization TNO in the next year or so.
