Introduction

I wanted to make something fun for my girlfriend using my MIT skillz. I landed on chocolates of my face.

3D Scan

I first needed to make a scan of my face. The scanner at the lab did not work, so I had to use an app on my phone. This took many attempts with different friends to find one who was detail oriented enough to get it to capture all of my head and hair.

I wanted to include a few with happy expressions, but it ended up being too hard to get all my hair into the scan. I tried to fix it up in Blender but that was too hard.

I’m surprised at how well they turned out!

3D Print

Time to make a mold positive. I imported the STLs into Fusion 360, converted them into a mesh, and then arranged them into a box pattern. Due to the high number of polygons, this took forever as each step required a lot of loading. Reduction didn’t work well :(.

In real life:

Mold Creation

After lots of research, I found a food safe silicon mold I could use. I mixed the silicone and poured it into the tray positive, and waited overnight. Unfortunately there were a ton of bubbles; the silicone was “degasser recommended.” I wish this was in the Amazon listing!

Casting

Gummies

This was the fun part… I originally wanted to make gummies because that is my Girlfriend’s candy of choice. I opted to not try to make my own gummy recipe and instead just remelt store bought gummies. Unfortunately the results of this method were way too sticky - I think the microwave denatured the gelatin too much which left it without an outside coating (the inside of gummies are sticky but the outside is not). I tried many different methods and left a huge mess. To no avail…

Chocolate

I pivoted to chocolate. Problem: girlfriend does not like dark chocolate. I went on an escapade around Boston to find chocolate before our dinner reservation. H-mart, Target, Walgreens, CVS. Multiple locations. None had any (besides some with almonds that would just burn when tried to melt in the microwave).

1.5 hours before dinner, I had a revelation. A chocolate store… I called the nearest one, and they said they had it. I rushed over and bought the stock.

I forgot to take images of the casting, but it was very simple. Put chocolate into microwave, melt for 45-60 seconds, pour gently into mold, and put it into the freezer. Apparently there are some tempering and more special things you need to do to cast properly for temperature resistance and nice surface finish, but I had no time for this!

Result

Look how good they look! Amazing!

I boxed them up and it is time for delivery.

Delivery

TBD!