Remote Control Jell-O
My research centers on an active amoeba-like material capable of radio-control shape manipulation.
How malleable could the built environment become? Morphogenesis, as seen in biological processes such as cell differentiation, offers an approach to human fabrication strategies. Digitized design and fabrication, aided by increasing computational power, will now integrate with the materials themselves. Transformable structure schemes can advance with transformable solids (or semi-solid materials) beyond the mechanical louver and iris. Shape shifting smart gels combined with tiny actuators enable a gel mass to receive radio commands from three-dimensional modeling software. The gel form updates to match the edited digital model. Over the next year I will be improving on a smart gel prototype by adding a user interface for 3D input.
Phase transition gels use a springy network of long string polymers to hold water or other solvent inside. N-isopropylacrylamide (the Drosophila of this gel family) in some cases expands and contracts up to a thousand fold at a specified trigger point. The stimulus can be a change in temperature, light, or ionization depending on the design of the molecule. The transition from initial volume to expanded state is reversible. Triggering these volume changes in small selected regions leads to overall shape change. More and smaller x-y-z regions of stimulation equate with a higher resolution shape control. This material forms itself from within when directed by radio signal rather than from without by physical tools. Mixed into the gel, the miniature actuators (picture raisins in Jell-O) employ a tiny thermal coil, battery, and numbered radio activated switch.
As an architecture student I was introduced to these phase transition gels by the late physicist Toyo Tanaka who discovered them. Taking part in the Home of the Future seminar (House_n) I proposed “Jell-O as a building material.” Demonstrating the chemistry of controlled gel expansion I described the potential for fully morphable structures and infrastructures. I presented table top chemistry and large scale fantasy. Since then understanding of the gel has swelled and micro circuitry has shrunk to the point that I can combine the two as a wet-digital mixture.
Published innovations in squishy robotics seem to miss the mark of fully morphable forms changing from within. These advances describe programmable matter, jamming, growing new organs, chem-bots, and whole-skin locomotion. Most of these involve a mechanical element or chamber while I am pursuing an electro-chemical system reminiscent of a living cell. Medical researchers are looking at ways to scale these gels down for pharmaceuticals. Turning to architectural scale uses pushes these materials in an unexplored direction.
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