Gone may be the days of sniffing the milk carton to see if your milk has spoiled, thanks to a collaboration between engineers at UC Berkeley and Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University.

This 3D-printed smart cap that the group has developed is meant to find a better way to detect whether a liquid has gone sour, thanks to the wireless electrical sensors that are attached to the milk carton’s smart cap.

Polymers combined with wax were used to create the cap. When the wax was removed, it left behind a hollow tube that allowed for the group to inject silver.

From there, the engineers added electronics, which included a capacitor and inductor to create a circuit that would monitor if and when the milk would spoil.

The group flipped over a milk carton so that milk could be captured in the capacitor. From there, they left the carton unopened for 36 hours in a room that was set at around 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

To determine whether or not the milk was spoiled, the engineers tracked the changes in the electrical signals that were associated with the increase of bacteria in the milk.

They continued to monitor the changes wirelessly by way of a radio-frequency probe.

Through their discovery, the group of engineers clearly demonstrated how 3D printing can work for basic electrical components.

Furthermore, this experiment and the invention of the smart cap intimates that 3D-printed smart caps could one day be used for food packaging purposes.

In fact, the group of engineers are currently working on inventing an implantable device with embedded transducers that can monitor blood pressure, muscle strain and drug concentrations through the smart cap technology.

For now, however, this news might only be a whiff of the smart cap’s innovation. We guess only time will smell, oops, we mean tell!

Copyright Inventionland, 2015

Sources:

https://news.berkeley.edu/2015/07/20/3d-printed-electronic-smart-cap/

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/70343/20150720/3d-printed-smart-cap-sense-spoiled-milk.htm

Media: https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/3dsmartcap-milk450.jpg

The post Smart Cap Redefines Spoiler Alert appeared first on Inventionland.

The team of three MIT students has created a modified 3D printer that has the ability to produce customized ice cream shapes. This means that if the process is done correctly, people will be able to have their desserts to order in the near future. This innovation has been achieved due to the use of a Solidoodle printer, in addition to a Cuisinart soft-serve ice cream machine. Through these two pieces of technology, the team was able to invent designs within a 15-minute window.

As of right now, the process goes a little something like this: in order to have the ice cream hold its shape and stay cold, the 3D printer is placed inside of a small freezer while the printed mixture is sprayed with a liquid nitrogen solution. After many failed attempts, the 3D printing invention finally successfully printed a star-shaped dessert.

Here’s a quick video that shows this “cool” 3D printed innovation in action!

Copyright Inventionland 2014

Sources:

https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/16/mit-students-create-an-ice-cream-printer/

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ice-cream-next-3d-printed-food-menu/#!bjcNF3

Media:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOzHoHttWAI

The post Get the ‘Scoop’ on the Latest 3D Printed Innovation appeared first on Inventionland.