Bytecake

This was built for the end-of-semester COMPSCI 230 celebration. The brief was simple: make something edible that teaches binary. The answer was a layer cake where each horizontal layer represents a bit — vanilla for 0, chocolate for 1.

The two-bit cake is four slices tall (00 through 11). The four-bit cake goes to sixteen layers. Cutting a slice reveals the binary number for that slice position, frosted onto the top in pixel font. We used a piping bag and food colouring to label each slice 0000 through 1111.

It took two full days of baking and about a kilogram of buttercream. Both cakes were gone in twenty minutes.