Posted 06.28.2010 at 4:00 pm
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Self-Folding Origami "Smart sheets" embedded with shape-changing alloys can fold themselves into almost any shape.
MIT
Scientists at MIT and Harvard have invented self-folding smart fiberglass sheets that can crease themselves into origami airplanes and boats.
It's a far cry from previous programmable matter research we've seen, which works at the nanoscale to create scaffolds and gears.
The fiberglass sheets are about a half-millimeter thick and made of half-inch-wide triangular tiles. They can be made at a larger scale, enabling machines that can fold, Transformer-like, into any number of objects.
Though the goal is to make large objects, the folding involves some nano-scale circuits. MIT computer scientist Daniela Rus embedded shape-memory strips, made of a nickel-titanium alloy, that were about 100 microns thick -- the width of a human hair. The sheets were also outfitted with stretchable copper-laminated plastic mesh, which served as wires.
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Technology, Rebecca Boyle, alloys, nanotech, origami, robots, self-assembly, shape-memory alloys, transformers, VideoEventually, the 32-tile sheets folded into boats and airplanes. Rus says the key was figuring out algorithms for folding. It was like learning origami, she says in a press release -- "We determine, based upon the desired end shapes, where to crease the sheet."
To make the folds, the team came up with thin stickers that contained the circuitry required to spur the alloy strips into action. Though the current design uses a computer, future designs will allow multiple stickers that can be changed without any computer programming. If you want a boat, you use one sticker; for a fork, use a different sticker.
The goal is to make sheets that could fold into multiple items, like a dining utensil set or a "Swiss Army Knife" tool kit.
More than meets the eye, indeed.
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maybe Iron Man's man crazy folding suit isn't that far off. 50 year? 100 years?
Sounds like the mysterious metal from Roswell, New Mexico.
Forget origami silverware, how about some self-assembling ninja stars?
At first I thought that they could self-assemble into real planes and boats!
mimetic poly-alloy?
the t-1000 was my first thought when i read this too
So they could send a large chunk of something like this and a battery and it could maybe unfold into a solar collector or a radio reciver on the moon or Mars. Maybe a whole base could just unfold itsef.
Just the thing for assembly on orbit; Spray the surfaces of the assembled
complex shape with structural foam, followed by a airtight sealant;
Instant space station.
They should perfect it, then combine it with other developing technologies in order to create actual useful devices.
Imagine if they could combine a roll up solar panel that is efficient enough to charge say.. a half dpeleted electric car in about 5 hours. So you bust out this rolled up sheet and solar panel that takes up the space of say a small camping tent, you connect it to your car to provide the voltage, it unfolds into a car port that fits in a parking space with your car, the solar panel on top then charges your electric car.
This of course would only be practical for those who park their car in the hot a$$ sun all day at work, and provided its in a relativeley safe or monitored parking lot.
It doesnt have to charge the care entireley but enough to make up say what was used to get to work. Provided you work a standard 8 hour day. Also, this would provide shade as well so your car wont be so damned hot when you go home, less A/C to cool it down and being electric, this would mean saving lots of mileage per charge.
Cookies for me, I solved the energy crisis :P
great guys. i believe transformers is not that far away.
Awesome. Call me a tree-hugger but the biggest advantages I see in this technology are portability and packaging reduction. Imagine items made out of these and they all ship flat-pack in identical units and with minimum packaging. Plus the material looks pretty light considering what it can do so there's big fuel use reduction.