Foam printer makes floating foam shapes

I don't know anything about this foam printer -- it appears to be creating very crisp forms out of soap (?) bubbles, which are then lofted into the air. The printer was apparently on display at IFA Berlin. Anyone know more? Hit the comments.

Foam Printer (via Beyond the Beyond)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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ridersman

Its excited and useful to known about that.
anthropomorphictoast

I guess you could call it a…

*puts glasses on*

Bubble jet printer.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.
greggman

Following the links above leads to this company.

Flogos
http://www.flogos.net/
Anonymous

I have seen one of these one a party. I creates one flying logo (you have to provide a template) every 5-7 seconds and is quite affordable since the foam is cheap. So you rent it on an per hour basis. The thingys are not for sale according to the staff i asked.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/traui/4998611839/in/set-72157624653108580/
elfspice

haha! i still say it’d be more fun if the gas was hydrogen… print out a bunch of shapes let them float up then shoot them with flare guns! wooo!!! that’d be so cool it’d be this BAM! and a white flash.
Gilgongo

Yes, we encountered one of these on the street while on holiday in Sofia, Bulgaria a few weeks ago. Was pumping out fruit shapes as part of a marketing campaign for some new brand of juice. The kids – and me – went wild chasing and catching them. Seemed to be made of very light detergent helium bubbles. Also appeared to be some skill in carving them out right so they came out more 3D. The guy was interfering with the mechanism you see in the video to do it.

I’d show my Flickr photos were it not for my damned other half forbidding me showing public photos of our kids on line. Stupid paranoid idiocy, but hey, the punishment’s not worth the risk.
Anonymous

Check out http://www.flogos.net
RainyDaySmiles

I’ve seen these around Toronto. Once doing the male/female washroom symbols, and once doing a Maple Leaf for Canada Day. It was sort of funny, the machine was set up on a pretty busy street when they were shooting out the people and as they floated up about half flew through hydro wires cutting them in half or beheading them. I assume that this was unintentional, but entertaining for a good 10 minutes. Oh and they can do colour, the maple leafs were red.
Boondocker

Why are half of the ‘Previously’ links about carpets?
Rainer

Gorgeous, a marketing tool to mesmerize. They need color and maybe glitter.
Anonymous

Flogo was going strong in Beijing couple weeks ago. Put a video up on: http://saltblock.tumblr.com/post/1189951183/surfactant-helium-carnival-of-beauty

They’re spelling out “Carnival of Beauty 2010″… Asked Jimmy (bossman) how it’s made, he said a mixture of surfactant, helium, and air.
Blaine

Last time I saw this, all I could think of was how awesome it’d be at night with some bioluminescence.
- Astragali
  
  … and I hope that you’d be watching them through the windows of the UFO Call Center while you field all the calls from people thinking we’re being invaded by Martians ;)
Anonymous

There is a company called Flogo that can come and do events at a price. My wife and I tried to get them to come out for an Autism event we are helping coordinate in October.
Anonymous

They had one of these outside of a Duane Reade grand opening near Times Square in New York this past spring..
liquis

Check out all the stars in the sky at 0:24. Berlin must be a pretty clean city.
Black_Vase

Those are bubbles at high altitudes. You usually can’t see stars out in the middle of the day.
Anonymous

I saw this on Queen street W in Toronto May of 2009. Shooting man and woman bathroom door icons into the air. Huge crowd. Loys of delighted kiddies and adults alike.
Anonymous

Reminds me of an old Mythbusters episode where they did something like that by pumping methane into a bucket of soapy water. Obviously flammable, don’t know what they’re using here.
Anonymous

They were shooting human forms over the sky of San Diego during Comic-Con last summer…eeriest thing I saw as the bubble men would be floating along the streets several stories up and held their shape until they were little dots far off in the sky.
Berk

I don’t think this is a printer.

at ~18s, it looks like it’s just extruding soap+helium foam through a cardboard die.

This looks like a rudimentary version.

… and a little more googlefu suggests it’s a flogos machine.
Anonymous

http://www.nickburcher.com/2008/05/flogo-cloud-logos-sky-isnt-limit.html

but i found out about it because of this project:
http://words.stuartsemple.com/2009/02/happycloud-tate-modern.html
Donald Petersen

I don’t know more, but I wanna. 1001 uses!
Anonymous

wanna see some thing really cool? someone give me a lighter.
Anonymous

I don’t think it’d be too hard to do this at home…

Cut out a stencil of the shape you want, put it over top of a bucket of soapy water, cover with fabric, insert helium hose into bottom of bucket. Bubbles will form in your chosen shape, and when you want to let it go, stretch a piece of string between your fists, and run it across the top of the bucket.
Fett101

Nintendo had a nationwide event for the release of a DS game that featured foam Kirbys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6Y9rnGFBI&feature=related
social_maladroit

Its inventor obviously got his/her inspiration by reading BoingBoing.
darthjer

Somebody had one of these at the hotel parking lot next to San Diego Comic Con this year and they were blowing little people and launching them into the sky. Well, they had a machine like this that was sending people shaped bubbles into the air.
- hogan44
  
  ok. u made me laff.
igzabier

information is golden, innovation is golden, world helium supply is limited, conservation is not golden, green consumption is golden.

from the youtube comments, it’s maker, I assume, flogos…http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.flogos.de/7-Information.htm&ei=mJqdTMzEJYOosAP8oeDVAQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB8Q7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.flogos.de/7-Information.htm%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den
voracious32

Has anyone used this to fill the sky with foam penises yet?