Silk Fabricator: Using Silkworms as 3D Printers
Riku Iwasaki

Yuta SatoIppei Suzuki

University of Tsukubas1611426@u.tsukuba.ac.jp

University of Tsukuba
s.yutassie@gmail.com

University of Tsukuba
1heisuzuki@gmail.com

Atsushi Shinoda

Kenta Yamamoto

Kohei Ogawa

University of Tsukuba
thinkdifferent1984.5.16@gmail.com

University of Tsukuba
kenta.yam.124@gmail.com

University of Tsukuba
ruscello1023.kt@gmail.com

Yoichi Ochiai
University of Tsukuba
Pixie Dust Technologies, Inc.
wizard@slis.tsukuba.ac.jp

Figure 1: Left: time lapse photos of the output process of silk printing. Right: application examples of the silk fabricator.

CCS CONCEPTS• Applied computing → Media arts; • Hardware → Printers;

KEYWORDS
Silkworms, 3D Print, Bio Art, Digital Fabrication
ACM Reference format:
Riku Iwasaki, Yuta Sato, Ippei Suzuki, Atsushi Shinoda, Kenta Yamamoto,Kohei Ogawa, and Yoichi Ochiai. 2017. Silk Fabricator: Using Silkworms as
3D Printers . In Proceedings of SA ’17 Posters, Bangkok, Thailand, November
27-30, 2017, 2 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3145690.3145704

1Figure 2: Comparison of the typical process and the proposed method.

INTRODUCTION

Digital fabrication has evolved over time with the development ofvarious methods such as three-dimensional (3D) printing and laser
cutting. Three-dimensional printers are capable of easily producing output from complicated models designed in a computer. Inaddition, bio technologies are applying for fabrication [Yao et al.
2015]. How can 3D printers be made to output computationallydesigned models of 3D sheets? Typically, the production of objects
made of silk threads requires several steps (Figure 2): (1) silkworms
form cocoons, (2) cocoons are made into threads, and (3) threads
SA ’17 Posters, November 27-30, 2017, Bangkok, Thailand© 2017 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Notfor redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in Proceedings ofSA ’17 Posters, November 27-30, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1145/3145690.3145704.

are transformed into clothes or other products. In the past, silkworms have been considered primarily as organisms that create
silk threads, rather than as being capable of providing a methodof silk production. Silk Pavillion [Oxman et al. 2014] was the firstexample where silkworms were regarded as providing a viable production method. However, this study only focused on making large
but simple structures. In this study, we propose a new method toconstruct arbitrary three-dimensional silk sheets using silkworms(Figure 1). Our method can be applied to small objects printed with
3D printers. First, we print a 3D model in several parts to prevent
silkworms from forming cocoons. When designing the model, weensure that the silkworms have sufficient space to create silk sheets.
Second, we print the portions of the model with a 3D printer. Third,
we place silkworms on these portions, allowing them to spit silk

SA ’17 Posters, November 27-30, 2017, Bangkok, Thailand

R. Iwasaki et. al.

threads. Finally, we peel off the produced sheets and connect them.
This approach depends on the fact that when silkworms are placedon the surface of a three-dimensional object, they create silk sheets
matched to the shape of the surface.

2of a hemisphere. In addition, this method can be applied to more
complicated shape like that in Figure 5.

METHOD

In order to ensure that silkworms do not make cocoons on themodel, it is necessary to divide the model by angle, and then evaluate whether the silkworms can traverse the divided model. Manyalgorithms are available for dividing a 3D model. Here, we make aprogram for dividing a 3D model based on the following algorithm(for details see [Mitani and Suzuki 2004] and [Lévy et al. 2002]). Figure 3 shows the divided model. The portions of the divided model
are thickened and then printed by the 3D printer. After printing,the surface of the 3D model is scraped so that the silkworms do not
fall off its surface. Finally, silkworms, which already had started tospew yarn on the model, are left to continue until they finish.

(a)

(b)

Figure 5: Application examples
Figure 3: Divided model. The number of triangles is 1370.
The height is 295.38 mm. Right is diveded models.

34 CONCLUSION
In this research, 3D model sheets were created with new materials, and a 3D model segmentation algorithm for paper crafts wasused in the approach to the research. Since we confirmed that silkworms could not stretch threads uniformly when the surface areaof a 3D object was large, we divided the object into multiple parts.
We succeeded in generating new 3D objects using silkworms, butseveral aspects of this work remain incomplete. For instance, thesilkworms could not spew yarn and produce 3D silk sheets because
they could not traverse elongated 3D objects. Additionally, silkworms could not make thread for finely-decorated objects. Therefore, the development of a method that can more accurately make3D silk sheets is needed.

APPLICATION

(a)

(b)

Figure 4: Comparison of lit objects with internal light source.
(a) hemisphere of 3D model printed by a 3D printer. (b) silksheet of hemisphere with (a).
By using a 3D silk sheet, a user can produce a non-woven fabricof an arbitrary shape. Therefore, this technique makes it possible tocreate masks and bandages that are suitable for being worn, and tocreate lanterns of arbitrary shapes. If the lampshade of a lanternis made from a silk sheet, the sheet will be able to diffuse light,
making it possible to create a uniformly-lit lantern. Figure 4 shows
the results before and after applying a silk sheet to the surface

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Neri Oxman, Jared Laucks, Markus Kayser, Jorge Duro-Royo, and Carlos GonzalesUribe. 2014. Silk pavilion: a case study in fiber-based digital fabrication. In FABRICATE Conference Proceedings. ta Verla, 248–255.
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