• Login
  • Register

Work for a Member company and need a Member Portal account? Register here with your company email address.

Project

Morphable Structures

Granular materials can be put into a jammed state through the application of pressure to achieve a pseudo-solid material with controllable rigidity and geometry. While jamming principles have been long known, large-scale applications of jammed structures have not been significantly explored. The possibilities for shape-changing machines and structures are vast and jamming provides a plausible mechanism to achieve this effect. In this work, jamming prototypes are constructed to gain a better understanding of this effect. As well, potential specific applications are highlighted and demoed. Such applications range from a morphable chair, to a floor which dynamically changes its softness in response to a user falling down to reduce injury, to artistic free-form sculpting.

All Mediated Matter images are subject to copyright. Please contact the group for more information or about reuse: mm-images@media.mit.edu