Psyche Inspired: Cameryn Laborte

Institution: Seattle University

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Psyche Inspired Class: 2020-2021

Reflections on Psyche Inspired

Reflections on Project 1: Cookie Psyche Excitement

An asteroid-shaped cookie of the Psyche mission badge with black lettering that says, "Journey to a Metal World PSYCHE," is centered in the foreground. Mission badge and asteroid cookies of the same yellow, orange, pink, and purple gradient are in the background.

Cookie Psyche Excitement

Cameryn Laborte

November 05, 2020

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Genre/Medium: butter cookies and icing

About the work: I relate the excitement of sharing Psyche to the sharing of good food. With that, I created a set of decorated cookies to look like the mission badge and the Psyche asteroid. I designed and 3D printed custom cookie cutters, with the mission badge cutter having a stamping feature for greater accuracy of the design. After baking, I used icing of the same colors as the mission badge. I tried smearing the icing to create gradients similar to the badge. For a more detailed approach, such as the black lettering and most accurate badge cookie, I used an edible watercolor technique.

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Reflections on Project 2: A Psyche Dozen

Six gingerbread men and six rectangular butter cookies lay in a checkered pattern. Each gingerbread man is decorated with the name of a Psyche Mission member, and their respective butter cookie is decorated with watercolor symbols to represent a lesson learned from them. The pairs are ordered by row: 1 - Marisol Arenas, Lindsay McLaurin; 2 - Tom Prettyman, Kristina Larson; 3 - Dr. Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Ravi Prakash.

A Psyche Dozen

Cameryn Laborte

November 05, 2020

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Genre/Medium: butter cookies and icing

About the work: I relate the excitement of sharing Psyche to the sharing of good food. With that, I created a set of decorated cookies to look like the mission badge and the Psyche asteroid. I designed and 3D printed custom cookie cutters, with the mission badge cutter having a stamping feature for greater accuracy of the design. After baking, I used icing of the same colors as the mission badge. I tried smearing the icing to create gradients similar to the badge. For a more detailed approach, such as the black lettering and most accurate badge cookie, I used an edible watercolor technique.

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Reflections on Project 3: Toward Collision

Crackled, textured white chocolate shards with shades of grey and silver stand at various angles in the center of a chocolate cake-filled chocolate hemisphere. The hemisphere is held by a red sugar sail sitting concave up on an upside down ceramic bowl with a silver background.

Toward Collision

Cameryn Laborte

February 24, 2021

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Genre/Medium: isomalt, cake

About the work: I was inspired by the hypothesis that Psyche may be the product of powerful collisions that stripped away the mantle of a protoplanet, leaving behind its inner core material. In this piece, I wanted to demonstrate a cross-section of that protoplanet headed towards a powerful collision with edible art. I textured white chocolate, broke it into shards, and colored it with different shades of grey metallic powder to represent the hypothesized iron core. I chose these metallic colorings and sharp, jagged textures to contrast the rocky mantle. I packed a chocolate hemisphere with a chocolate cake and frosting mixture to represent the mantle. Crumbled cake shows the contrast of how soft rock materials are in comparison to metal. The crumbled cake also showed the characteristics of some rocky asteroids composed of many individual stones, or in this case crumbs. To show the movement that this protoplanet would go through, I used isomalt to create a red sugar sail that surrounds the chocolate hemisphere.

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Reflections on Project 4: Around Psyche

Three embroidery hoops of black fabric lay arranged as a triangle on an off-white wall. The top hoop has an embroidered asteroid colored with yellow, orange, pink, and purple threads. The bottom left hoop has a yellow threaded circle with unsymmetrical white dashed lines following the arc of the circle from the top most point to the bottom most point. The bottom right hoop is slightly bigger with an orbital design of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the Psyche asteroid and spacecraft at three spots. A white dashed line circles from Earth to Mars then around to a greater orange outer circle where Psyche and the spacecraft meet.

Around Psyche

Cameryn Laborte

April 19, 2021

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Genre/Medium: embroidery hoops

About the work: The organic shape of Psyche contrasting with the rigid, sharp-angled spacecraft inspired me to look for more of the beautiful, round shapes associated with the Psyche mission. The first and largest piece was inspired by the path the Psyche spacecraft will take from Earth to the asteroid with a gravity assist from Mars. The second piece was inspired by Dr. Rona Oran’s presentation on what the electromagnetic field might look like around Psyche. The last piece captures Psyche itself in vibrant colors from the mission badge.

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Taste of Space (Bonus Project)

Cameryn Laborte

April 30, 2021

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Genre/Medium: meringues

About the work: As I near the end of my time in Psyche Inspired, I realized how the mission to Psyche still has further to go, yet it takes its time to celebrate its milestones. It reminded me of how one takes a coffee break to recharge before pushing onward. Thus, I was inspired to make a Psyche treat that can be enjoyed at every coffee break and milestone: meringues. I modeled the meringues after the spacecraft and asteroid, making them small enough so they could float in a latte together.

To make the meringues: mix 180 grams of sugar into 120 grams of egg whites in a double boiler until the sugar is dissolved (the texture is not gritty between your fingers). Add some vanilla extract and mix with whisk attachments on high speed for about 8-10 minutes (almost stiff peaks). Separate the mixture into bowls and mix in coloring. Transfer to piping bags and pipe designs onto parchment paper/silicon mat. Bake in an oven set to 200 F for 1.5 hours.

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The Psyche badge with no words on it.

Psyche Inspired

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