I will discuss some recent work on characterizing the growth and form of physical filaments and surfaces in living and nonliving systems. Experiments and theory allow us to discover the principles that underlie the morphospace of forms, and pave the way for their design and control. Examples that I will try and highlight include inverse origami for programming curvature, controlled precipitation for functional nanoscale structures, phytomimetic 4D printing of stimulus-responsive structures, and inverse design of active filaments for optimal locomotion.

In this talk, we'll present an API for interacting with the Form 1+ desktop 3D printer. The printer is normally used with Formlabs's desktop software and materials, but there are use cases that aren't well served by the default pipeline. This API opens up new opportunities for research and experimental projects that take advantage of the printer’s high-performance laser positioning system. One alternative pipeline uses the API to modify existing print files, e.g. pausing mid-print to insert other materials. Designers can also create new print files from scratch, using the Form 1+ as a high-precision laser scanner to etch PCBs and draw 2D artwork.

Analog telephone calls degraded with distance; digitizing communications allowed errors to be detected and corrected, leading to the Internet. Analog computations degraded with time; digitizing computing again allowed errors to be detected and corrected, leading to microprocessors and PCs. Manufacturing today remains analog; although the designs are digital, the processes are not. I will present research on digitizing fabrication by coding the construction of functional materials, show assembler workflow development, and explore implications of programming the physical world.

We are faced with the challenge of building fabrication machines that can realize the benefits of computational design, yet in turn such machines require advanced computation to reach their ultimate performance limits. I will highlight a series of ongoing projects that emphasize this challenge and opportunity: a high-throughput extrusion-based 3D printing platform; digital printing of cells and microorganisms using image-guided flow lithography; adaptation of robotics for large freeform surface patterning; and growth of textured surfaces using carbon nanotubes. Spanning length scales and materials, these efforts share the common principle of seeking faster and more flexible fabrication by starting from first principles of manufacturing process design, and emphasize the necessity for tight synergy between extreme hardware and computation in future work.

"I believe that computer science and mechanical engineering are about to unite. In the future, users will build machines and solve mechanical problems by digitizing the involved objects using 3D scanners, solving the problem in the digital domain using the means of computer science, and converting the result back to the mechanical domain using a 3D printer. This will allow solving mechanical problems with the effectiveness and efficiency of computer science. This will not only change mechanical engineering, but also allow computing to reach its next phase, which is to merge into matter itself, where the physical matter of objects will also perform the computation. In this talk, I will take a closer look at this unification process and try to point out the five grand challenges it brings for researchers in the field of human-computer interaction and in particular personal fabrication"

Computational fabrication devices make production of high-quality artifacts accessible to everyone. However, the design of these artifacts still requires skills and experience, making it difficult for individuals to design customized artifacts that satisfies their specific needs. To address this problem, our group has been developing various easy-to-use tools for individuals to design their own original artifacts such as toys, clothing, musical instruments, and furniture. This talk will introduce some of these tools with live demonstrations.

In this talk, I will outline a general computational approach for material-aware design of complex 3D models. The key step is to identify suitable geometric abstractions of physical properties that enable effective computations with high predictive accuracy. I will show several examples of this approach for interactive design with inextensible and auxetic materials, and for performative optimization for light re-directing surfaces. These studies illustrate how to leverage geometric insights, mathematical theory, and advanced algorithms to design effective computational tools for surface rationalization, form finding, and interactive shape exploration.

Advances in structural form finding and optimization have resulted in exciting curved surfaces structures that are both material efficient and expressive. Realizing these new geometries can easily result in immense construction inefficiencies and waste when fabrication is not explicitly considered during the design stages. This lecture will present the Block Research Group’s work in developing computational approaches that connect structural form finding to fabrication strategies for the early design phase of free-form funicular shells.

As the characteristic size of a flying robot decreases, the challenges for successful flight revert to basic questions of fabrication, actuation, fluid mechanics, stabilization, and power -- whereas such questions have in general been answered for larger aircraft. When developing a robot on the scale of a housefly, all hardware must be developed from scratch as there is nothing "off-the-shelf" which can be used for mechanisms, sensors, or computation that would satisfy the extreme mass and power limitations. Similarly, when creating robots from materials softer than skin, traditional rigid mechanisms and motors are inappropriate. With these challenges in mind, this talk will present progress in the essential technologies for insect-scale robots and soft-bodied robots.