EMILIA LOUISA PUCCI

NARROWING DOWN THE SCOPE

After the Mid Term Review and the realization that I would not be able to carry out my final project exactly in the way I wished, but that I needed to cut something out, I have to be honest, I wasn't really too happy about it.. I really wanted to implement the heart rate measurement in the interaction, but it became obvious that if i had to eliminate something, it should be that, due to my current knowledge on the topic. So I adjusted my interaction flow and my electronics diagram to accommodate the narrowing down of the scope. Meanwhile, as part of the experimentation on materials, I was really keen on trying to make mycelium leather, so I decided to make an experiment in that direction to evaluate feasibility.

INSPIRATION

OBJECTIVES & PLAN

This week I decided to focus my time  doing two things:

• Narrow down the scope of the project to make it more feasible
• Experiment with mycelium to see if we could create leather, or something similar

MAKING THE PROJECT MORE FEASIBLE

INGREDIENTS

• Brainstorming
• Ilustrator

PROCEDURE

In accordance to the feedback received on Sprint 2/Week 3 I made the decision to simplify the project as follows:

• INTERACTION - Focus on soft pressure sensor input > massage vibration output  on acupressure points as the interaction
• DESIGN - Focus on parametric design withGrasshopper to create the design of the top
• TEXTILE CRAFT - Focus on collaborating with a Mayan community of bordadores to create an embroidery for the heart

I simplified the circuitry diagram to exclude the heart rate sensor and looked for a Mayan community that I could work with.

RESULTS & REFLECTIONS

I am satisfied with the outcome of the simplification, as it will leave more time for me to focus on refining the interaction and the design + craft. I plan to add the heart rate sensor in the next version of the prototype and  

EXPERIMENT WITH MYCELIUM

In this experimentation with Mycelium, my initial goal was to find out if there was an open source recipe to create the Mycelium leather made famous by companies like MycoWorks, so that I could create a sheet of mycelium leather to be laser cut with a voronoi pattern created on Grasshopper. I quickly understood that it's easier said than done, and the open source  information I found online was only going to help me make a rigid mycelium material. I decided to experiment anyway, by using the information shared by FB group Fungal Materials & Biofabrication. I used the open source Manual on Fungal Material, created and shared by Elise Elsacker (researcher), Kristel Peters (shoe designer), Winnie Poncelet (bio-engineer)

INGREDIENTS

• Transparent plastic sample molds. You will need a foil to cover it if you don’t have a lid. The mold has to be metal or plastic, else you will need to cover the inside with plastic foil (eg. a wooden mold) / we used plastic petri dishes, to create different small samples
• Mixing bowl
• Coffee grounds
• Woody substrate enough to fill your mold - henequén, sawdust
• Cooking pot
• High pressure cooker (or better, an autoclave)
• A vertical gas fire, like a camping fire (or better, a bunsen burner)
• Cloth bag (like a white pillow case)
• Mushroom spawn (seeds) / we used huitlacoche and champignon mushrooms from the supermarket, as well as fungi found outdoors
• Stove
• Water
• Plastic gloves
• Alcohol (70%) or other disinfecting product
• Thermometer
• New, fresh plastic bag

PROCEDURE

You can find the complete procedure in the above mentioned Manual on Fungal Material, but here is a quick recollection of my process, and the tweaks I made according to my context in Fablab Yucatán, Merida.

We made 2 batches of the Mycelium material, one with sawdust from the Fablab and one with dried henequén fibers. Henequén is a fiber that comes from an agave in Yucatán, and it used to be at the core of the local industry in the first part of the 20th century. 

BATCH 1 / SAWDUST

1. Sterilize EVERYTHING with Alcohol. This will prevent the bacteria from contaminating the process and killing the mycelium.
2. I made a cloth bag with some scrap cotton samples laying around in the lab.
3. I mixed the coffee grounds with the henequén fibers in a bowl, with the coffee ground around 1/10 of the cloth bag. 
4. We filled the cotton bag with the substrate coffee + henequén and put it to boil inside the pressure cooker and filled the pot with water, fully submerging the substrate
5. We put the pot on the stove and let it  boil, for 30 minutes. Between reaching boiling temperature and boiling, it took about 45 minutes total. 
6. After that, we turned the stove off, removed the water and let the substrate cool down for 30 min. The substrate is now pasteurized, aka most bacteria are dead.
7. We removed the substrate from the cloth bag in order to make it cool down faster, making sure to not expose it to bacteria, so closing the pot lid.

After cooling down, these steps were done quickly to ensure the mycelium wouldn't get contaminated by other bacteria.

1. We disinfected everything again with alcohol, and put on latex gloves before handling the substrate and mushrooms.
2. We turned on the campfire flame and put it in the middle of our working area to keep it disinfected.
3. When the mixture was cooled down (we did not have a thermometer, but we assessed it might be 30-35 degrees Celsius, we disinfected the bowl and the petri dishes.
4. We placed enough substrate in each petri dish to fill it half way and then placed inside the mushrooms, one kind in each dish, cut in small pieces. 
5. We added some glycerin to a couple of the samples, to see if that would add elasticity to the material.
6. We covered the molds with the petri dish lid and placed them in a styrofoam box.
7. We put the styrofoam box in a dark space at about 30 degrees Celsius, and waited 10 days to see the results.

BATCH 2 / HENEQUÉN

We followed the same procedure with the henequén fibers, with the difference that we were a bit rushed in the end and waited less for the fibers to cool down. For this reason the substrate we used was warmer, probably about 40 degrees Celsius. 

We sterilized everything again, but I have the feeling that this time the process was a lot more rushed and thus less accurate. I'm not sure everything stayed sterilized.

In total, we used the following variations on theme to create the mycelium:

SAWDUST

• Champignones
• Huitlacoches
• Fablab Fungi
• Huitlacoche + glycerin
• Fungi + glycerin
• Champignones + linen fabric

HENEQUÉN

• Champignones
• Huitlacoches
• Fablab Fungi
• Champignones + glycerin
• Fungi + glycerin
• Champignones + linen fabric

The instructions indicated to keep the mycelium at a temperature between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius for 5-14 days, where the first phase of growth would take place. It mentioned that a white growth should take place during this phase, covering up all the substrate. After the first growth was successful, the mold should be removed from the plastic bag, put in a new plastic bag, and put back in the dark place for another 5-7 days.

RESULTS & REFLECTIONS

I checked the state of the mycelium 12 days after the experiment. The main takeaway was that overall it didn't successfully grow the mycelium in the expected way. Below are some images showing the behavior of the different samples, with a description of the state each is in. 

The other samples were not photographed because they didn't present any kind of visible growth. The main lesson learned is that the mold for the mycelium should be bigger, in order to allow more air to circulate (I'm not sure that is the truth, so please let me know if I have it wrong). Also, next time I'll try to get spawn instead of using mushroom, because the result might be better. I'm definitely keen on trying again! And I thank the authors of the Manual on Fungal Material for their support in this first mycelium adventure.