Living ink and computational knitwear: 6 programmable materials that will soon shape your world

Antigravity experiment — © Steve Boxall/MIT

Welcome to the wonderful world of programmable materials. From self-assembling structures to futuristic fabrics, take a peek at six high-tech inventions set to revolutionise your life.

Algorithmic art

HygroScope — © ICD University of Stuttgart

Nature takes advantage of the way that wood responds to its environment.

We see this when a pinecone falls from a tree and its scales begin to peel open as it dries out, allowing it to release its seeds. It’s a result of the wood’s hygroscopicity – its ability to take up and release moisture – and the predictable change in shape that it undergoes when this happens.

But such shape-shifting behaviour can also be harnessed by humans.

基于深入的了解如何通过合理ture content and grain direction of wood affect its shape, German architects programmed this ‘climate-responsive’ wooden exhibit to open the bud-like structures on its surface in response to rising humidity levels.

The humidity inside its glass housing at the Centre Pompidou art museum in Paris, is tuned to reflect outdoor conditions, so the installation acts as a virtual connection to the city outside.

“The model opens and closes in response to climate changes with absolutely no need for any technical equipment or energy,” saysProfessor Achim Menges, director of the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational Design and Construction.

“Here, the natural material itself is the machine.”

Magnetic manoeuvres

Stuff that sticks together in a preordained way could help with many self-assembly tasks here on Earth but in space it could be really useful.

As PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Martin Nisserexplains, “Applications could range from assembling structures from constituent parts in orbit, to helping with docking manoeuvres, to selectively bonding objects like tools to a spacecraft’s interior walls.”

Nisser’s team created ‘voxels’ – magnetic cubes that can self-assemble, like pieces of a 3D puzzle, and took them on a parabolic flight to watch them in zero G. The cubes are picky, attracting only their neighbours in the ‘puzzle’ and repelling others.

This is achieved by the magnetic patterning of each cube, which is encoded in an 8 x 8 grid on every face, meaning that the number of unique permutations per cube reaches 20 digits.

On Earth, researchers put the voxels in water to keep them moving to find their neighbours, but in space they need a push.

Flexible flatpack

Hylo Tech Furniture — © University of StuttgartXS

Programmable design isn’t just for space-age applications. We can use it in our homes too, as this second project from the University of Stuttgart and furniture spin-off Hylo Tech illustrates.

Benefitting from the same moisture-responsive behaviour as the climate-responsive art exhibit, these wooden chairs are delivered in 3cm-thick flatpacks but bend as they dry out to produce stylish, standard-height seating. It’s a new concept in flat-pack furniture, Prof Menges explains, “One in which the shaping is embedded directly within the material itself, leading to a simple and effortless assembly.”

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As fresh timber has a naturally high moisture content, woodworkers use computer simulations to inform how they retain the right amount of moisture.

With the correct fibre direction, they can ensure the cut pieces deform perfectly as their moisture content drops. The chairs are then sealed to prevent them ‘actuating’ before they are delivered.

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Not just knitting

Knitted textiles have, in a sense, always been programmable – variations in stitch types, tension, and yarn colour and weight can be combined to create different textiles with wide-ranging functions.

Now the art of ‘computational knitting’ is opening up new possibilities, including textiles with architectural features like the peaks in this image, by helping to optimise the programming of knitting machines.

“Since each fabric piece may contain hundreds of thousands of loops, programming becomes complex,” says PhD studentMaria Anishchenko.

She works with the Material Balance Research Group in Milan, Italy, where researchers are attempting to use computer software to 3D model and preview the results of their knitting designs. These can then be digitally tested, before being realised in yarn.

Living ink

Bioink Close up — © Nature Communications

3D printing has made it possible to translate digital designs into material objects and products that are printed layer by layer. But it’s not just inert plastic, metal and ceramic products that can be printed.

The tiny, jelly-like structures above were printed in microbial ink – a gel made of bacterial proteins and seeded with genetically engineered E. coli bacteria.

In this sense, it’s a living material that, through genetic modification, can be programmed with useful functions like releasing drugs or cleaning up harmful materials.

Researchers at Harvard, and Northeastern Universities in Boston, showed they could genetically program the bugs in their bio-ink to release the anticancer drug Azurin (a bacterial protein), when prompted by a chemical signal. It could also be useful for “incorporating living cells into structural building materials”.

On repeat

One way to program a material is to alter the base material itself, which is possible using plastics with finely tuneable compositions.

Another way is to build them from repeating units at the microscale, or tiny ‘cells’, like the ones in this 3D-printed ‘metamaterial’ made by researchers from six German research institutes in the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence in Programmable Materials.

The size of each cell can be controlled to form a microstructure that reacts in a predictable way.

Pressing on a mattress made with such cells, for example, could trigger a change in the softness of the material, which could allow carers to adjust mattresses to prevent bedsores in patients who can’t turn themselves.

The possibilities for using these metamaterials extend further to pollution-trapping filters with programmable pores.

Getting pumped

Softroboticshave endless applications, from technologies for people with limited mobility, to more playful uses, such as interactive toys and haptic technologies. But the complex programming they require can often slow down the realisation of these projects.

That’s whyAli Shtarbanov, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, created FlowIO – a platform that people can use to develop soft robotics projects with a minimal need for computer code.

Users build their devices using pump systems, which can be controlled by software that’s easy to customise.

The pumps are used to raise or lower pressure within a soft material to produce an action, such as lifting an object. Shtarbanov has even used his system to produce a hand gadget that could beef up the gripping power of people with arthritis.

About our experts

Prof Achim Mengesis director of the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational Design and Construction. His areas of research include adaptive building materials, bionics, and computer-based design and construction. His research has been included in over 200 peer-reviewed journals, includingCivil Engineering Design,Advanced ScienceandArchitectural Design.

Martin Nisseris a PhD Candidate in the HCI Engineering Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds degrees from MIT, ETH Zurich, and The University of Edinburgh.

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