New material innovations that can substitute the use of ABS plastic piques my interest, as it should of those conscious of the e-waste we create daily. The production of computer peripherals has grown manifold but ethical ways to dispose of the plasticky waste and electronic components have not grown in the same propensity. To that accord, the idea of a BioHybrid Device for that can grow through biofabrication instead of being constructed on an assembly line really brings forth a sustainable alternative we could love to embrace.
Designed and created by Vivien Roussel, Madalina Nicolae, and Marc Teyssier; BioHybrid Device is a combination of biological growth and digital fabrication. It is (according to the designers) grown using a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY). It is then integrated with sensors and electronic components – during the natural growth process – to create a real device you can play with. How cool is that?
Designers:
The idea of the project kicked off with the question; “what if we could biologically grow interactive devices?” To achieve the proposed outcome, designers have fused electronic components into living organisms to produce interactive biohybrid devices. This provides us with an idea of a future where we can have natural devices that can develop, evolve, and eventually biodegrade at the end of life. We would still need ways to dispose of the electronics: maybe someone is thinking of fabricating them biologically as well.
The base biomaterial produced by the symbiosis of bacteria and yeast is a bacterial cellulose traditionally used for the creation of sustainable leather-like artifacts. Designers have leveraged this and used morphogenesis for embedding it with electronic components of a traditional controller to make this BioHybrid Device video game controller.
These biologically grown devices blur the boundaries between living and non-living systems, in the process opening up possibilities to create interactive devices through biological and digital fabrication for many other applications such as robotics, medical devices, and wearables, in addition to the proposed usage in gaming. While most of it looks impressive, such devices would entail a complex fabrication process and require more maintenance to remain functional for a longer time.
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