this is me building a prototype for six
hours straight
this is slave labor to my own project
this is what the DIY and maker movements
really look like and this is an analogy
for today's construction and
manufacturing worlds with brute-force
assembly techniques and this is exactly
why I started studying how to program
physical materials to build themselves
but there is another world today at the
micro nano scales there's an
unprecedented revolution happening and
this is the ability to program physical
and biological materials to change shape
change properties and even compute
outside of silicon-based matter there's
even a software called CAD nano that
allows us to design three-dimensional
shapes like nano robots or drug delivery
systems and use DNA to self assemble
those functional structures but if we
look at the human scale there's massive
problems that aren't being addressed by
those nano scale technologies if we look
at construction and manufacturing
there's major inefficiencies energy
consumption and excessive labour
techniques in infrastructure let's just
take one example take piping in water
pipes we have fixed capacity water pipes
that have fixed flow rates except for
expensive pumps and valves we bury them
in the ground if anything changes the
environment changes the ground moves or
demand changes we have to start from
scratch and take them out and replace
them so I'd like to propose that we can
combine those two worlds that we can
combine the world of the nanoscale
programmable adaptive materials and the
built environment and I don't mean
automated machines I don't just mean
smart machines that replace humans but I
mean programmable materials that build
themselves and that's called
self-assembly which is a process by
which disordered parts build an ordered
structure through only local interaction
so what do we need if we want to do this
at the human scale
we need a few simple ingredients the
first ingredient is materials in
geometry and that needs to be tightly
coupled with the energy source and you
can use passive energy so heat shaking
pneumatics gravity magnetics and then
you need smartly designed interactions
and those interactions allow for error
correction and they allowed the shapes
to go from one state to another state so
now I'm going to show you a number of
projects that we've built from
one-dimensional two-dimensional
three-dimensional and even
four-dimensional systems so in
one-dimensional systems this is a
project called the self-folding proteins
and the idea is that you take the
three-dimensional structure of a protein
in this case it's the Kramden protein
you take the backbone so no
cross-linking no environmental
interactions and you break that down
into a series of components and then we
embed elastic and when I throw this up
into the air and catch it it has the
full three-dimensional structure of the
protein all of the intricacies and this
gives us a tangible model of the
three-dimensional protein and how it
folds and all of the intricacies of the
geometry so we can study this as a
physical intuitive model and we're also
translating that into two-dimensional
systems so flat sheets that can cell
fold into three-dimensional structures
in three dimensions we did a project
last year at tEDGlobal with autodesk and
arthur olsen where we looked at
autonomous parts so individual parts not
pre connected that can come together on
their own and we built 500 of these
glass beakers they had different
molecular structures inside and
different colors that could be mixed and
matched and we gave them away to all the
tedsters and so these became intuitive
models to understand how molecular
self-assembly works at the human scale
this is the poliovirus you shake it hard
and it breaks apart and then you shake
it randomly and it starts to error
correct and build the structure on its
own and this is demonstrating that
through random energy we can build non
random shapes we even demonstrated that
we can do this at a much larger scale
last year at Ted Long Beach we built an
installation that builds installations
the idea was could we self assemble
furniture scale objects so we built a
large rotating chamber and people would
come up and spin the chamber faster or
slower adding energy to the system and
getting an intuitive understanding of
how self-assembly works and how could we
use this as a macroscale construction or
manufacturing techniques for products so
remember I said 4d so today for the
first time we're unveiling a new project
which is a collaboration with Stratasys
and it's called 4d printing the idea
behind 4d printing is that you take
multi-material 3d printing so you can
deposit multiple materials and you add a
new capability which is transformation
that right off the bed the parts can
transform from one shape to another
shape directly on their own and this is
like robotics without wires or motors so
you completely print this part and it
can transform into something else we
also worked with autodesk on a software
they're developing called project
cyborgs and this allows us to simulate
this self-assembly behavior and try to
optimize which parts are folding when
but most importantly we can use this
same software for the design of
nanoscale self-assembly systems and
human scale self-assembly systems these
are parts being printed with multi
material properties here's a first
demonstration a single strand dipped in
water that completely cell folds on its
own into the letters MIT I'm biased this
is another part single strand dipped in
a bigger tank that cell folds into a
cube three dimensional structure on its
own so no human interaction and we think
this is the first time that a program
and transformation has been embedded
directly into the materials themselves
and it also might just be the
manufacturing technique that allows us
to produce more adaptive infrastructure
in the future so I know you're probably
thinking okay that's cool but how do we
use any of this stuff for the built
environment so I've started a lab at MIT
and it's called a self-assembly lab and
we're dedicated to trying to develop
programmable materials for the built
environment and we think there's a few
key sectors that have fairly near-term
applications one of those is in extreme
environments
these are scenarios where it's difficult
to build our current construction
techniques don't work it's too large
it's too dangerous it's expensive too
many parts and space is a great example
of that we're trying to design new
scenarios for space that have fully
reconfigurable and self-assembly
structures that can go for highly
functional systems from one to another
let's go back to infrastructure in
infrastructure we're working with a
company out of boston called geosyntec
and we're developing a new paradigm for
piping imagine if water pipes could
expand or contract to change capacity or
change flow rate or maybe even undulate
like peristaltic s-- to move the water
themselves so this is an expensive pumps
or valves this is a completely
programmable and adaptive pipe on its
own so I want to remind you today of the
harsh realities of assembly in our world
this is complex things built with
complex parts that come together in
complex ways so I would like to invite
you from whatever industry are from to
join us in reinventing and reimagining
the world how things come together from
the nano scale to the human scale so
that we can go from a world like this to
a world that's more like this
thank you