Here's a picture of the huge mit....
Posted on 08/27/2016 8:35:43 PM PDT by BenLurkin
In cooperation with the Sinapore University of Technology and Design, the MIT researchers found a way to print tiny features on a micron scale, and then bent them — causing them to spring back into their original shape afterwards after being heated to a certain temperatures, according to an MIT statement.
There are so many potential important applications for the discovery, including actuators that would turn solar panels toward the sun automatically and drug capsules that act on their own. It’s something that goes beyond 3D printing into what researchers would call 4D printing, as the structures cross into the fourth dimension of time.
..
Fang and other researchers have been looking into using soft, active materials as tools, including shape-memory polymers. This has implications for use in biomedical devices, soft robotics, wearable sensors and artificial muscles, the authors wrote, describing the polymers as “particularly intriguing,” as they can switch between two states: a harder state at lower temperatures and a softer state at higher temperatures.
“The reality is that, if you’re able to make it to much smaller dimensions, these materials can actually respond very quickly, within seconds,” Fang said. “For example, a flower can release pollen in milliseconds. It can only do that because its actuation mechanisms are at the micron scale.”
(Excerpt) Read more at morningticker.com ...
The Bionic Man. Faster. Stronger. But still just as stupid.
Say do what?
PING!
Schwing!
Agree, that was indeed a stupid show with a stupid character. For instance, I don't understand how removing lug nuts with his fingers would result in a ratcheting sound of a pneumatic wrench when his fingers don't have pneumatic actuators and gears.
Anyway, that 4D printing would be great if you have kids in the house touching your stuff. They bend it, and it snaps back into original shape. Now if only they could make kids toys that put themselves away.
I’m stuned in a very small way and kind of bent about it.
I already foresee applications in the area of male sexual-performance assisitive technologies.
Like the bi-metal strip in a thermostat?
Please... Don’t tell that “Flex Seal” guy. We’ll never hear the end of it.
I am thankful for engineers. The unsung heroes of modern life. They are incredibly smart and educated. They are the builders, the makers.
“Like the bi-metal strip in a thermostat?”
exactly
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