[SGVHAK] The Exploratory Makerspace and Ice Creamistry

[Lan Dang]

I forgot to say that I took pictures.

http://www.meetup.com/SGVTech/photos/23450052/

I have video from the balloon experiment as well.
http://youtu.be/U3jhxDzekAI

Lan



On Saturday, July 26, 2014 8:24 PM, Lan Dang <l.dang at ymail.com> wrote:
 


Hi all,

Michael and I headed out to Culver City to the Exploratory ice cream workshop.  It was a pretty cool visit.  We got a tour of the Exploratory Makerspace, which is a space that is definitely kid-friendly, but with an area that is meant just for adults.  The kid-friendly place is well laid out with sections dealing with sewing and e-textiles, stop motion animation, 3D-scanning, 3D-printing, paper circuitry, and some other fun activities.  There are cubbies and storage bins mounted on the walls.  It extends to the back patio and alleyway, where they can do testing.  There is space next door for the adult makerspace with all the bigger machines and wood working tools, a couple of bigger 3D printers and a couple of laser cutters.  There is paid staff as well as volunteer experts.  They have a lot of activities, and during the summer, they are busy with summer camps.

The Ice Creamistry workshop was definitely aimed at parents and kids, but they had different activity areas.  There was a section to experiment with ice cream flavors by making ice cream in a baggie with salt and ice.  There was an area to play around with dry ice and bubbles, with safety gloves and goggles.   We also inflated balloons by adding large amounts of dry ice and water to a plastic bottle, and then attaching the balloon to the bottle.  Though there was some adult guidance, everyone was pretty much doing whatever looked interesting, and the staff encouraged that.


There were instructions for the liquid nitrogen ice cream setup, which involved picking your flavor and your toppings, and handing it over to the man with the souped up stand mixer and the liquid nitrogen tank.  The guy running the machine is Scot from Nitropod, which does parties and events and will be launching a food truck in a couple of weeks.    I believe the mixer is from NitroCream, a company that sells liquid nitrogen ice cream equipment. 

He basically mixes the flavor with his organic ice cream base, adds in a blast of liquid nitrogen, and puts it in the mixer, which will mix in the liquid nitrogen with the ice cream, and keep it from freezing to a solid mass on the side of the bowl.  If he adds too much liquid nitrogen, he ends up with dry ice cream like dipping dots.   The toppings are added in during the last minute or so.  He made about a pint at a time--that is about 2 cups or 16 oz of ice cream base.  They packed it into a pint container  for our enjoyment.

Toppings included cut up fruit, gummi bears, candies, sprinkles.  There was also a bottle of sriracha, which a couple of people used to make
 sriracha ice cream.  I just used it as a topping on mine--it wasn't bad.  Sriracha is a little sweet, so it wasn't as jarring as you would think.

I think liquid nitrogen ice cream may be a little too smooth for my taste, but it's a quick way to make many different flavors of ice cream.  Plus, you can use the liquid nitrogen afterwards to freeze and smash stuff.  We took it out back, behind the building.   Michael destroyed my hard-earned penny by dipping it in liquid nitrogen and taking a hammer to it.  It was easy to destroy some things, and not so easy to destroy others.  We were unable to make a dent in a metal ball.  We didn't have much luck with various forms of plastic, though ping pong balls were very satisfying to shatter.   Our best experience was when we put an inflated balloon into a liquid nitrogen bath.  It shrunk and crumpled up before our eyes.  When we took it out of the
 bath and it warmed up, it inflated right back up again, though there was a small amount of frost inside the balloon.  The kids were also fascinated when they threw the liquid nitrogen out on the hot concrete and saw droplets moving across the surface before sublimating.


I kinda wish the Exploratory was closer to us.  We came there as strangers, but it wasn't long before we felt right at home.  And now I really want to play with liquid nitrogen.

Lan
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