Use a laser cuter to create a mold with acrylic
Equipment:
Laser Cutter
Material:
Acrylic Sheet (3mm clear used here)
Software:
Inkscape
Cutting software (Lightburn used here)
Basic image of your choice
Use Inkscape to convert a simple rastor image into a vector
Import an image of your choice
Select Path > Trace Bitmap
Right click image > Fill & Stroke > Stroke Paint > select fill & make sure color is set (in this case I set the stroke color to black
Select Stroke Style and set width to 1 px
Save svg file
Prepare vector image for cutting
Import SVG into your cutting program (Lightburn in this case)
Select the appropriate speed and strength (100% and 5 mm/s for this machine)
Load material & perform cut
Load the material into laser cutter
Select the appropriate settings for your laser cutting device
Select cut
Remove finished product
Note: I experimented with cutting an outline as an alternative mold, but that is not a requirement.
Following the recipe, create a (hopefully) jiggly biomaterial
Agar Agar Recipe:
150 ml of water / 16 g of agar agar / 8 ml of glycerin / dash of tumeric for color.
We were aiming for a springy mixture. Adding less agar agar will be fine and will result in a more stiff final product.
Instructions: Add the water and agar agar in cold to the pot. Heat the mix to a medium temperature while stiring slowly.
Add the glycerin and tumeric. Allow the mix to simmer and pour into the mould once it has begun to harden.
Take out your hardened biomaterial
The biomaterial had shrunk during the drying stage, but largely retained its shape. The consistency was not as jiggly as I had hoped. Additionally, Singapore is a humid country so there was some minor mould spotting, but that was easy enough to brush off.
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