Okay, this is cool (albeit slow if you watch the timeline in the video). Researchers at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrated how a single thin sheet composed of interconnected triangular sections could transform itself into a boat or plane shape — without help. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The video shows it all:
The abstract of the paper, “”Programmable matter by folding states:
Programmable matter is a material whose properties can be programmed to achieve specific shapes or stiffnesses upon command. This concept requires constituent elements to interact and rearrange intelligently in order to meet the goal. This paper considers achieving programmable sheets that can form themselves in different shapes autonomously by folding. Past approaches to creating transforming machines have been limited by the small feature sizes, the large number of components, and the associated complexity of communication among the units. We seek to mitigate these difficulties through the unique concept of self-folding origami with universal crease patterns. This approach exploits a single sheet composed of interconnected triangular sections. The sheet is able to fold into a set of predetermined shapes using embedded actuation. To implement this self-folding origami concept, we have developed a scalable end-to-end planning and fabrication process. Given a set of desired objects, the system computes an optimized design for a single sheet and multiple controllers to achieve each of the desired objects. The material, called programmable matter by folding, is an example of a system capable of achieving multiple shapes for multiple functions.
For more information (all paywall sites):
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Using origami design principles to fold reprogrammable mechanical metamaterials Science 2014 345 (6197) 647-650
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A method for building self-folding machines Science 2014 345 (6197) 644-646
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SoftCubes: Stretchable and self-assembling three-dimensional soft modular matter The International Journal of Robotics Research 2014 33 (8) 1083-1097
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Coarse-grained, foldable, physical model of the polypeptide chain Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2013 110 (33) 13368-13373
- Progress on ‘pico’ air vehicles The International Journal of Robotics Research 2012 31 (11) 1292-130
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