Assemble yourself? 4D Printing can

Si Keller Tubitz (Tencent Science and Technology) with the development of technology, 3D printing so that people can easily complete the image of the production of objects. For example, you can use a 3D printer to "hit" a plane model. But have you ever heard of 4D printing? Compared with 3D, this more advanced technology, in addition to the "long width and height" of these three-dimensional three-dimensional structure, but also adds a so-called "time line." Once it's in real life, a lot of sci-fi movies will appear in front of you. If the chair can deform itself. Keller Tubitz, the founder of the MIT Automation Lab, unveiled the 4D printing technology they developed at the TED conference in Boracay, California, this February. News, the whole industry for the boiling, even with the relevant High-tech materials stocks also soared. What is 4D printing? It sounds just a number more than 3D, but it's actually a completely different concept. "3D printing is to be modeled, scanned, and then fully replicated with the appropriate material as previously planned." Tubitz said, "4D printing is directly to the desired character input material, and then the object will be ' automatic ' appearance, do not need any complex electromechanical equipment. "It sounds very mysterious, and in fact it does." Non-physics, materials and computer majors will be disoriented, but what if it's a different way of explaining it? Engineering software Developers "Autodesk" (Autodesk) have been studying 4D printing technology, and their chief research scientist Caro Augou for an analogy: "Imagine you buy a chair from Ikea, put it in your room, and it automatically assembles, which is 4D print." "Inspiration from the bio-reproduction of the MIT Automation Lab has always been interested in biological self-replicating, Tubitz. When he joined the TED conference in 2011, he talked about his expectations for future manufacturing. "I believe that machines and buildings will soon be able to assemble, reproduce and repair themselves, as this is the inherent power of natural systems." "In the current manufacturing industry, we can build a skyscraper with 500,000 or even millions of components in 2.5 time." This is a very complex design, using the most advanced steel, concrete and glass. We can also use 5 years to create exciting spacecraft, which have 2.5 million components. "These are great achievements, but compared to natural systems?" "We have 2 million types of proteins that can be folded in 10,000 nanoseconds (a time unit, or one 1 billion of a second)." In about 1 hours, 3 billion base pairs will replicate DNA. "After this comparison, Tubitz said that human capabilities are quite small," but if we can learn the laws of natural systems, the way we build things becomes incredibly efficient. "Decoding and material selection is the key today, Tubitz and his lab really brought the concept and display of 4D printing, and demonstrated this technology at this year's TED conference." In the videoAmong them, he "prints" out a "rope". Then the "rope" twisted itself into a cube. This is just one of the many complex steps, and if there are 100,000 "ropes", they will become more complex things. According to the technology blog "Geek" explanation, 4D printing is not the key to what can be generated, but in the process of "deformation." "The fourth dimension in 4D printing is ' autonomous assembly '," the article writes, "but ultimately it's ' time ' because the assembly process takes place after printing. The object is printed and then contacted with a medium to produce a preset reaction. In Tubitz experiments, water is a deformed medium. "Of course, not all materials and water contact can be completed" autonomous assembly ", decoding and material selection is the key. Tubitz will decode what it wants to do, which is a reverse work similar to parsing human DNA sequences. He then chooses ordinary plastic and an active substance (protein) to implant the decoded sequence. Then there is the miracle that these "smart" materials will deform as envisioned, "they can reverse 120 degrees, minus 120 degrees until they reach the most precise position." "Future sewers will grow themselves?" The advent of 4D technology has cheered the industry, which has made designers and architects around the world crazy. Think about it, you just need to decode a skyscraper in front of the computer, and then input to a specific material, it can automatically "long" out of the roof, load-bearing walls and elevators ... "You know, printing isn't really a new concept," Tubitz says, "but it's different when it comes to future changes." We can create many structures at will, using the bending and twisting of materials to change many aspects of our lives. If the groundwater pipe can be scaled to meet different needs and flows, it will save the steps of digging the streets. "In addition, this technology can also be applied to furniture, bicycles, automobiles and even medical fields." However, because the decoding steps are very complex, the current 4 D printing technology can only "print" the automatic deformation of the Strip object. Next, Tubitz and his peers aim to "print" the flaky object, which is then the more complex structure of the object. Although not perfect, Tubitz has apparently touched the "doorknob" that changes the future world. Tubitz's special artwork is a special artwork between the 55th and 66th floors of MIT. It was designed by Tubitz and his colleagues and students, and as a gift for the 150 anniversary of the school and the Arts, Science and Technology festival. Its name is "Voltdom", a device art that symbolizes the design of the future. This is a piece of art made of glass and concrete, but the material used is not ordinary glass and concrete. They are a masterpiece of Tubitz with new materials, and in the future he hopes to be able to use 4D printing technology to complete this complex, hundreds of arched structures. Now, it is embedded in the corridor, according to the day of light changes showShow different forms. This is possible because the inner arches of the volddom are different, the thickness of the material is inconsistent, and the light cannot penetrate through all kinds of reflections and refraction. Tubitz hopes to expand the modern architectural concept of the "surface panel" by Voltadom to reflect this feeling by strengthening the depth of the hyperbolic dome. This is the work that he and the team assembled together, if 4D printing can continue to develop, he can simply "print" out. The 4D printing technology of Tubitz and his lab Tubitz has not yet matured, but it is rapidly stirring up in the world. Related memory metal and software company share price rose, a Loyang trend. But the concept of hot speculation is not their goal, as his laboratory Sjet LLC wrote on the official web site, "Our quest for technology is endless." "As the top student of the University of Philadelphia, Tubitz came to MIT with 5 years of bachelor's degree in architecture and an experimental computer degree, where he went on to study and get a master's degree in computer science. In 2007, he set up the Sjet LLC at MIT, initially trying to build a platform for design and computer experimentation. But after years of development, the laboratory now spans many areas, including architecture, design, manufacturing, electronic science and robotics. And Tubitz as a leading figure, also become the current design, construction and automatic assembly system of the world's favorite. In the past few years, he has won the scholarship of TED2011 and 2012, and was rated as one of the most revolutionary thinkers by the Journal of Seed. He gave lectures at the Museum of Modern Art in the United States, attended the Guggenheim and Beijing Biennale, and lectured as a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, Pratt College and Harvard Graduate School.