Engineers devise a modular system to produce efficient, scalable aquabots
The system’s simple repeating elements can assemble into swimming forms ranging from eel-like to wing-shaped.
The system’s simple repeating elements can assemble into swimming forms ranging from eel-like to wing-shaped.
A new algorithm for automatic assembly of products is accurate, efficient, and generalizable to a wide range of complex real-world assemblies.
Researchers make progress toward groups of robots that could build almost anything, including buildings, vehicles, and even bigger robots.
Researchers create a method for magnetically programming materials to make cubes that are very picky about what they connect with, enabling more-scalable self-assembly.
Department of Architecture doctoral candidate Lavender Tessmer has advanced the process to produce textiles that can be individually customized.
Their swirling, clustering behavior might someday inform the design of self-assembling robotic swarms.
The TESSERAE project, a design for self-assembling space structures and habitats, has sent prototypes to the International Space Station.
Self-assembly of Kevlar-inspired molecules leads to structures with robust properties, offering new materials for solid-state applications.
The subunits could be robotically assembled to produce large, complex objects, including cars, robots, or wind turbine blades.
In the Maldives, an MIT team is conducting experiments to combat sea-level rise by redirecting natural sand movement.
Skylar Tibbits makes materials that water, heat, or mechanical forces can alter into new shapes.
Systems of tiny robots may someday build high-performance structures, from airplanes to space settlements.
Self-assembling materials can form patterns that might be useful in optical devices.
Mobile motor could pave the way for robots to assemble complex structures — including other robots.
Expanding polymer enables self-folding without heating or immersion in water.