Mould Me is part of the Purple Planet exhibition at Cadbury World. It features virtual chocolate technology and casting incredibly lifelike chocolate busts of visitors into a hall of fame.

Cadbury were finding that users wanted to take home images of their experience so the software was modified so that the user’s images could be sent to the gift shop. Here they could be printed onto t-shirts, mugs and keyrings. Due to the success of the Purple Planet interactives Cadburys reported that the spend in the gift shop went up by £2 a head, not bad when the attraction sees over 500,000 visitors a year.

Role
Software project management, UX

Length
1 month. Completed in 2008

Team size
Project manager, UX, 2xDevelopers, 2xInstall crew

Deliverable
Installation

Design process
User testing, design refinements

However at Exeter University they are trying to build a 3D chocolate printer (that is, a printer that prints out chocolate models, not a printer made out of chocolate!)

“This machine is effectively a novel 3D chocolate printer that can produce chocolate products exactly as a 3D model designed in your own computer. Imagine you could draw a 3D ‘face’ model of someone or extract it from a personal photo, send it to the 3D printer and watch it grow in front of you from chocolate.”

Apparently taste and smell emotionally affects people 75% more than any other sense. Various brands have started doing some really cool experiences using taste and smell. Thorntons made an edible billboard and during an advert for suncream Nivea pumped the smell of suntan lotion into the cinema.