Forget the 3D Printer: 4D Printing Could Change Everything
Scientists at MIT are using a new technique that could print responsive objects—from water pipes to sneakers—that adapt to their surroundings on their own.
By Randy Rieland
May 16, 2014

These days, 3D printing seems to be at the core of most new new research ventures, whether it's developing ways to print entire meals or recreating facial features to repair a patient's face.

But Skylar Tibbits wants to up the ante: He's hoping 4D printing will be the thing of the not-so-far future.
The name for his concept, Tibbits admits, was a bit lighthearted at first. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tibbits and researchers from the firms Stratasys and Autodesk Inc were trying to come up with a way of describing the objects they were creating on 3D printers—objects that not only could be printed, but thanks to geometric code, could also later change shape and transform on their own.

The name stuck, and now the process they developed—which turns code into "smart objects" that can self-assemble or change shape when confronted with a change in its environment—could very well pop up in a number of industries, from construction to athletic wear.

“Normally, we print things and we think they’re done,” Tibbits says. “That the final output and then we assemble them. But we want them to be able to transform and change shape over time. And we want them to assemble themselves.”

Tibbits, a research scientist at MIT, was given the go-ahead last year to establish what’s known as the university's Self-Assembly Lab. The challenge was to see how smart researchers could make an object without relying on sensors or chips; how fluid they could make something without wires or motors.

...................................


More and Videos:
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation...87lYJEkLi8PO.99

That's pretty close to my reaction LOL