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The Dome Plate

Brigitte
Age 11Kitchener, Canada

This idea has been brought to life

Our very own Chief Inventor Dominic Wilcox got tempted to bring this brilliant and fun idea to life! Food flying in space is no joking matter as crumbs can lodge themselves in computer systems and wreck them!

Maker blog entries

Dominic Wilcox has been working on making this idea real.
Making the Dome Plate
Posted by Dominic Wilcox

I loved the idea of something that could stop your food floating around in space and wanted to make a prototype to show Brigitte's great idea off. I had a good chat with her on skype and got some excellent feedback on my plans for making of her idea.

After a bit of thinking about making it look like the food is floating, I bought a rotating display motor and hid it inside the box. This would great the turning movement.

I bought a food tray dome and used a laser cutter to cut a hole in the top and also create a yellow lid to match the drawing.

For the food I bought some fake buns and doughnuts but needed to work out how to make them appear to float. I bought some clear acrylic rods from a model shop and made a sort of tree structure to hold up the food. I cut holes into the food and glued them onto the clear sticks. 

The whole thing needs to be transported and packed up safely so I made the food and support sticks removable by sticking a magnet on the bottom and a bit of metal onto the motor. In this way you can stand the structure up through a hole in the box to set it up.

I was very happy with the way it finished and with the food slowly rotating it gives a good effect of no gravity floating.

Brigitte's idea was excellent and I'm sure CSA will be impressed, it was a pleasure to help make her idea come to life.