The emergence of 4D printing Skylar Tibbits

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