Tapioca Lego Bricks

Since the end of Winter Term I've been working on a side project that I hope becomes a big part of my final Senior show. I constructed a wooden lego block that locks together, and then cast three rubber molds from it. Pictured is the process of pouring the first half of the rubber mold into the cardboard casing sealed with hot glue. After the material sets, I apply more anti stick spray and make sure the coat of vaseline is covering the wood. I then pour enough rubber mixture in to cover the brick. After that half sets, I carefully remove the cardboard casing and seperate the two halves slowly. It was very exciting learning these new skills and this new process. I hope to use this knowledge a lot in the future for more installations. The fabrication line feeling of making these molds and casting bricks from them was way more fun than I expected. The meditation and repetition of the process allowed me to think through the issues I was having with my other projects as well as my other academic work.

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To cast the bricks from my new molds, I spent some time testing the material mixture. I wanted to get the bricks to a point where they could lock in together and weren't too fragile so that anyone could use them. First I made some bricks with just plaster. They were very brittle, and sometimes crumbled when fitting them together. I tried mixing more plaster into the water, and then drying them in the oven before using them. This process reminding me a lot of cooking with my grandma, which gave me the idea of using Tapioca flour to try and give more elasticity to the bricks. I hoped since tapioca, when heated in water, becomes gelatinous and thick, the chemical process of the plaster heating up the water might cook the tapioca a bit and add the flexibility and bonding power I needed. It worked somewhat, but not enough. I was scared to use too much tapioca powder because I didn't have much left and it was too expensive to make the amount of bricks I wanted for my installation. I also tried to put dende in the mixture to give it a more yellow color and tie into the experience of cooking with my grandma.

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So far, I haven't made any breakthroughs, but the process of making these bricks has been so cathartic that I keep making them, and hope the more expendable test bricks can serve a purpose as breakable fodder in the installation. I want to make a lego brick wall to frame in my furniture as a walk in play room. The fragile bricks gave me the idea of having a false door that can be broken into by the first visitors to the gallery. I'm going to keep experimenting with the bricks as I finish my other projects, which will hopefully be done in time for the final show.