Jan. 28- Feb. 12

As I further developed my idea for the modular chocolate pieces, I decided that I wanted the pieces to be interlocking. When I was a kid I had wooden block puzzles that would only assemble one way and it was a brain teaser to try to figure out how to put them together and take them apart . This idea merged with the wooden stacking block game called Jenga, and I began forming my chocolate puzzle with those games as inspiration.

Here were a few sketches of early designs:

rubix cube

hexagon design

I was originally playing around with a cube as my form but I decided that with rectangular pieces it reminded me too much of a Rubix cube. I began working with a hexagonal shape instead, as it offered more facades to alter and I felt it would be more welcoming for a group of people to enjoy. I imagined that it would be placed in the center of a round table at a wedding or special event. Then multiple people could reach across the table and take pieces from the side that faced them.

I also wanted to design the serving platter that it would be presented on. I made several sketches of possible designs depicted below. I envisioned that the chocolate would be served with several dipping bowls that held delicious sauces to add a further element to the dessert. The platter itself would be made of wood and shaped to hold the chocolate puzzle and the bowls.

Using these sketches as guides I began making the serving platter. First I made a test piece of white pine and then a final piece of jotoba. I cut the wood and created a jig so I could easily rout out the the plate. Here are the jigs I created and the test plate:

I spent quite some time trying to decide how I wanted to finish the edges of the plate. I ended up making a test piece of wood with different treatments of the edges to see how different chamfers and trims looked.

wood 2

wood

Once I had the dimensions I liked for the puzzle I took small pieces of foam and cut them to get an idea of how I would design the puzzle itself.

puzzle foam e

puzzle foam f

puzzle foam a

puzzle foam b

puzzle foam c

puzzle foam d

From this experiment I was able to use Google SketchUp to design the dimensions of the final pieces and make a file to 3D print the positives I would need to make molds to pour the chocolate into.

Read on here