Real-Life Transformers

Published by patrick honner on

folding robotsThis is an absolutely mind-blowing idea:  robotic “paper” that can fold itself into an arbitrary three dimensional object.  Be sure to watch the short video accompanying the article.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/programmable-matter-0805.html

Tying (or folding?) all of the physics and engineering together here is the mathematics of origami.  How can you fold a square sheet into a boat?  A plane?  A tetrahedron?  A super-intelligent robotic giraffe?


patrick honner

Math teacher in Brooklyn, New York

1 Comment

Mr. Li · September 1, 2010 at 1:35 pm

Very interesting. An interesting thought came into mind when i saw this. In a sense we can somewhat say we turned 2d into 3d. Since 3d people are controlling the remote to turn something 2d into 3d, can there be some sort of 4d person controlling something of our 3d world?

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