Inflatable Tableware

2018

Erato Lab, Tokyo, Japan

Working in Progress, patent in process

Team project: Heeju Kim, Young Ah Seong

Role: Design Researcher. Contributed Idea generation, experiments

This design in process is a compact and portable tableware set using thermal energy driven actuator. The actuator consists of a pouch and low boiling point liquid inside and inflates when contacted with an outer thermal source. This material is lightweight and durable in its pre-expansion state, so that tableware can be folded like a piece of paper. When inflated, a pair of rectangular pieces become hard enough to be used as chopsticks. The final set will include chopsticks, spoons, and a variety shape of bowl and dishes.

When the liquid inside reaches a boiling point (34C), the folded pouch swells in the form of a chopstick. Variety of pouch forms that are convertible into spoons, bowls and dishes will be included in the tableware set.