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This is me building a prototype
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for six hours straight.
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This is slave labor to my own project.
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This is what the DIY and maker movements really look like.
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And this is an analogy for today's construction and manufacturing world
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with brute-force assembly techniques.
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And this is exactly why I started studying
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how to program physical materials to build themselves.
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But there is another world.
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Today at the micro- and nanoscales,
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there's an unprecedented revolution happening.
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And this is the ability to program physical and biological materials
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to change shape, change properties
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and even compute outside of silicon-based matter.
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There's even a software called cadnano
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that allows us to design three-dimensional shapes
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like nano robots or drug delivery systems
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and use DNA to self-assemble those functional structures.
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But if we look at the human scale,
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there's massive problems that aren't being addressed
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by those nanoscale technologies.
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If we look at construction and manufacturing,
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there's major inefficiencies, energy consumption
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and excessive labor techniques.
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In infrastructure, let's just take one example.
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Take piping.
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In water pipes, we have fixed-capacity water pipes
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that have fixed flow rates, except for expensive pumps and valves.
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We bury them in the ground.
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If anything changes -- if the environment changes,
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the ground moves, or demand changes --
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we have to start from scratch and take them out and replace them.
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So I'd like to propose that we can combine those two worlds,
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that we can combine the world of the nanoscale programmable adaptive materials
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and the built environment.
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And I don't mean automated machines.
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I don't just mean smart machines that replace humans.
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But I mean programmable materials that build themselves.
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And that's called self-assembly,
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which is a process by which disordered parts build an ordered structure
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through only local interaction.
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So what do we need if we want to do this at the human scale?
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We need a few simple ingredients.
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The first ingredient is materials and geometry,
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and that needs to be tightly coupled with the energy source.
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And you can use passive energy --
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so heat, shaking, pneumatics, gravity, magnetics.
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And then you need smartly designed interactions.
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And those interactions allow for error correction,
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and they allow the shapes to go from one state to another state.
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So now I'm going to show you a number of projects that we've built,
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from one-dimensional, two-dimensional, three-dimensional
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and even four-dimensional systems.
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So in one-dimensional systems --
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this is a project called the self-folding proteins.
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And the idea is that you take the three-dimensional structure of a protein --
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in this case it's the crambin protein --
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you take the backbone -- so no cross-linking, no environmental interactions --
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and you break that down into a series of components.
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And then we embed elastic.
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And when I throw this up into the air and catch it,
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it has the full three-dimensional structure of the protein, all of the intricacies.
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And this gives us a tangible model
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of the three-dimensional protein and how it folds
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and all of the intricacies of the geometry.
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So we can study this as a physical, intuitive model.
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And we're also translating that into two-dimensional systems --
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so flat sheets that can self-fold into three-dimensional structures.
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In three dimensions, we did a project last year at TEDGlobal
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with Autodesk and Arthur Olson
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where we looked at autonomous parts --
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so individual parts not pre-connected that can come together on their own.
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And we built 500 of these glass beakers.
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They had different molecular structures inside
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and different colors that could be mixed and matched.
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And we gave them away to all the TEDsters.
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And so these became intuitive models
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to understand how molecular self-assembly works at the human scale.
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This is the polio virus.
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You shake it hard and it breaks apart.
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And then you shake it randomly
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and it starts to error correct and built the structure on its own.
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And this is demonstrating that through random energy,
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we can build non-random shapes.
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We even demonstrated that we can do this at a much larger scale.
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Last year at TED Long Beach,
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we built an installation that builds installations.
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The idea was, could we self-assemble furniture-scale objects?
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So we built a large rotating chamber,
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and people would come up and spin the chamber faster or slower,
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adding energy to the system
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and getting an intuitive understanding of how self-assembly works
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and how we could use this
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as a macroscale construction or manufacturing technique for products.
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So remember, I said 4D.
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So today for the first time, we're unveiling a new project,
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which is a collaboration with Stratasys,
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and it's called 4D printing.
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The idea behind 4D printing
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is that you take multi-material 3D printing --
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so you can deposit multiple materials --
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and you add a new capability,
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which is transformation,
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that right off the bed,
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the parts can transform from one shape to another shape directly on their own.
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And this is like robotics without wires or motors.
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So you completely print this part,
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and it can transform into something else.
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We also worked with Autodesk on a software they're developing called Project Cyborg.
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And this allows us to simulate this self-assembly behavior
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and try to optimize which parts are folding when.
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But most importantly, we can use this same software
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for the design of nanoscale self-assembly systems
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and human scale self-assembly systems.
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These are parts being printed with multi-material properties.
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Here's the first demonstration.
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A single strand dipped in water
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that completely self-folds on its own
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into the letters M I T.
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I'm biased.
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This is another part, single strand, dipped in a bigger tank
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that self-folds into a cube, a three-dimensional structure, on its own.
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So no human interaction.
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And we think this is the first time
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that a program and transformation
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has been embedded directly into the materials themselves.
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And it also might just be the manufacturing technique
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that allows us to produce more adaptive infrastructure in the future.
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So I know you're probably thinking,
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okay, that's cool, but how do we use any of this stuff for the built environment?
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So I've started a lab at MIT,
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and it's called the Self-Assembly Lab.
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And we're dedicated to trying to develop programmable materials
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for the built environment.
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And we think there's a few key sectors
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that have fairly near-term applications.
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One of those is in extreme environments.
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These are scenarios where it's difficult to build,
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our current construction techniques don't work,
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it's too large, it's too dangerous, it's expensive, too many parts.
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And space is a great example of that.
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We're trying to design new scenarios for space
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that have fully reconfigurable and self-assembly structures
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that can go from highly functional systems from one to another.
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Let's go back to infrastructure.
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In infrastructure, we're working with a company out of Boston called Geosyntec.
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And we're developing a new paradigm for piping.
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Imagine if water pipes could expand or contract
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to change capacity or change flow rate,
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or maybe even undulate like peristaltics to move the water themselves.
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So this isn't expensive pumps or valves.
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This is a completely programmable and adaptive pipe on its own.
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So I want to remind you today
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of the harsh realities of assembly in our world.
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These are complex things built with complex parts
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that come together in complex ways.
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So I would like to invite you from whatever industry you're from
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to join us in reinventing and reimagining the world,
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how things come together from the nanoscale to the human scale,
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so that we can go from a world like this
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to a world that's more like this.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)