The team. An image of the people who will work on the project of making a material from wood chips, in the industrial design center

A photo of the different materials that will be used to make the materials, together with some samples of materials that were previously made using wood chips.

A photo of the big bag of wood chips from the wood workshop. These are the wood chips that will be used to make the materials.

An image of wood chips dyed with colouring made from red beetroot. This was made together with group 4 (bio-colouring).

First big batch of forms. 8 with gelatine, glycerine and water. These 8 have different proportions of wood chips and gelatine. In the other 4 cornstarch is added.

We discovered that woodchips start to mold when they are wet. This happened with the dyed woodchips, as well as the ones made with gelatine.

We tried different methods of machining and finishing on some samples to see if it was possible to change the form after it was moulded.

To combat the molding, we placed our samples in a dehumidifier oven to get the water out. Once the water was out, we put them in open air to let them dry out.

After making the samples last week, we tried drying them, to avoid mold, by using an oven. Sadly this didn’t make much difference, the sample still formed mold. We tried blending the samples and some new sawdust to make smaller sawdust.

We teamed up with group 11 (moulding) to try out their mould perforated with holes. We also talked with the mycelium group and the bio-colouring group to further develop our options.

Instead of using normal water, we used distilled water in hopes it would stop the molding. We made 2 batches, one with gelatine and one with agar for the first time. The agar is looking very promising.

We 3D-printed a mould with some bigger holes than the one from team 11. This let us squeeze the agar agar and water out, while the woodchips stayed in place. We will take the sample out and put it in an oven as soon as possible, to combat molding.

Despite our use of distilled water, almost all our samples started to mold. We also found out that the agar + woodchips samples shrinked by almost 7,5%. Nevertheless, some of our samples are really strong and sturdy.

We started using mycelium this week. We will try out different sizes of sawdust, to see which one is preferable.

The results of the wood chips dyed by team 4 (bio-colouring) were disappointing. The woodchips were dyed with alcohol and red beetroot powder. Most of the colour evaporated with the alcohol.

We made a new batch of agar agar and woodschips. This time we used bigger woodchips instead of sawdust. We are excited to see how strong and light this version will be.

Finally some good news. Some samples were put in the oven for some time. This made sure that all of the moisture was gone, which made the mold disappeared. The result is a really strong and light brick. The next thing we have to do now is find a function or use for our material.

We tried milling one of our samples to see how well it could be machined. The milling was done with great success!

We grounded up one of our samples to see how well it could be recycled. The result was really good; a pretty sturdy sample and no mold!

To see how water resistant our material is, we tried putting some water on it after it had fully dried. The result was that the material absorbs the water immediately and that the material becomes soggy.

We made an instructable to share our concept with a wider audience. In less than a week we've seen a lot of interaction.

We've bought more agar agar to be able to do a workshop with interested students in the coming week(s).

We tested the material against heat. It gets harder and more brittle but it doesn't catch fire.

Earlier this week we prepared care-packages that contained all the needed ingredients to make the biomaterial.

We set up our kitchen to give a workshop to some enthusiastic students.

The workshop was very successful, everyone managed to make their own sample of the biomaterial.