{"id":337509,"date":"2025-12-27T02:34:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T02:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/337509\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T02:34:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T02:34:05","slug":"scientists-make-material-that-can-morph-into-anything-with-the-pull-of-a-string","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/337509\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Make Material That Can Morph Into Anything With the Pull of a String"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a very thin line between math and art. As it turns out, the same can be said about material science and paper art.<\/p>\n

At first glance, the flat, tiled pattern developed by researchers doesn\u2019t\u00a0look too special. But\u00a0once you\u00a0pull the little string sticking out from the side,\u00a0the grid\u00a0quickly transforms into, well, any 3D structure it\u2019s meant to be. The new material, inspired by the Japanese paper art technique known as kirigami, could have an impressive range of applications, from transportable medical devices and foldable robots to modular space habitats on Mars.<\/p>\n

The researchers, led by MIT\u2019s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, describe the new material in a recent ACM Transactions on Graphics<\/a> paper.<\/p>\n

Art-inspired algorithm <\/p>\n

For the new material, the researchers developed an algorithm that translates the 3D structure provided by users into a flat grid of quadrilateral tiles. This mimics how artists that practice kirigami (literally Japanese for \u201ccutting paper\u201d) cut material in certain ways to \u201cencode it with unique properties,\u201d the researchers explained to\u00a0MIT News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The specific mechanism applied here is known as an auxetic mechanism, which refers to a structure that grows thicker when stretched out but thinner when compressed.<\/p>\n

The algorithm then calculates the \u201coptimal string path\u201d to minimize friction and connect the lift points along the surface, so the grids become the intended 3D structure with one smooth pull of a string.<\/p>\n

\"OneAn animation showing the structure unfolding with one string pull. Credit: MIT <\/p>\n

\u201cThe simplicity of the whole actuation mechanism is a real benefit of our approach,\u201d Akib Zaman, the study\u2019s lead author and a graduate student at MIT, told MIT News. \u201cAll they have to do is input their design, and our algorithm automatically takes care of the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chair that held <\/p>\n

After multiple simulations, the team finally used their method to design several real-life objects. These included medical tools such as splints or posture correctors and igloo-like structures.<\/p>\n

\"ChairResearchers created a human-scale chair, pictured above. Credit: MIT <\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the algorithm is \u201cagnostic to the fabrication method,\u201d so the researchers used laser-cut plywood boxes to create a fully deployable, human-sized chair\u2014and it held when used as an actual chair, according to the paper.<\/p>\n

That said, there will likely be \u201cscale-specific engineering challenges\u201d for larger architectural structures, the researchers noted in the paper. But the novel method is easy to use and relatively accessible, so the team is now enthusiastically exploring ways to tackle these challenges, in addition to building tinier structures with this technique.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people will be able to use this method to create a wide variety of different, deployable structures,\u201d Zaman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a very thin line between math and art. As it turns out, the same can be said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1897,59,32147,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-337509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-art","tag-gb","tag-material-science","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}