MATERIAL INFORMED FABRICATION
Inspired by aqueous material information, the Water-based Digital Fabrication Platform offers a new perspective on manufacturing by combining a ubiquitous natural material with robotic fabrication and synthetic biology to create graded material properties and self-assembly in product and architectural constructs.
A robotically controlled multi-chamber extrusion system is designed to deposit biodegradable composites with functional, mechanical and optical gradients across length scales. An integrated computational workflow encodes for both fabrication, assembly, and structural information through heterogeneous material organization. Dynamic flow rates, motion profiles, and layering methods directly address the material information to create a high fidelity design space with this unique material.
The structures are made of a bioplastic derived from chitin, where ground arthropod shells are demineralized and hydrated into chitosan. Evaporation patterns created by geometric arrangement and hierarchical distribution of the aqueous material controls the structural properties and self assembly of each printed form. Applications include fully recyclable products or temporary architectural components with graded properties, water storage capacity, hydration induced shape memory, and product disintegration over time.
Project Credits
Water-Based Digital Fabrication was developed by The Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab.
Researchers: Jorge Duro-Royo, Laia Mogas-Soldevila, Daniel Lizardo, James Weaver, William Patrick, Steven Keating, Sunanda Sharma, Markus Kayser, John Klein, Chikara Inamura, and Prof. Neri Oxman.
Supported by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA-21), the WYSS Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and Argonne National Laboratories (x-ray synchrotron)