Research & Innovation
MIT's Folded Aluminium Shells Are Three Times Stiffer on Two-Thirds the Material
Alfonso Parra Rubio and Neil Gershenfeld's Center for Bits and Atoms, with collaborators in Bologna, Innsbruck and Tokyo, combined two tripod cells from a 1960s Resch tessellation into a building block with zero degrees of freedom. An automated solver designs the cells, a CNC mill cuts them flat, and people fold and bolt them together by hand.