A fun paper on creating a simple type of programmable matter: http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/107/28/12441.full.pdf … The idea is very simple and clever (cont):
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It's to create a "universal"(ish) sheet of paper for origami, with a fixed triangular crease patterns. The folds can go either way, and which way is determined by some embedded actuators.
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If I understand correctly: you specify an overall shape that you want, then a computer figures out the correct pattern of folds to make, the actuators are activated, and the paper self-folds into an approximation of that shape.
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It looks like a toy. But I like the idea, in part because the basic primitives are extremely simple, & yet can give rise to surprising complexity. It's also very different than other approaches to programmable matter I've seen, with (presumably) different strengths & weaknessespic.twitter.com/29W77AF716
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They have a nice little result guaranteeing universality of their basic crease pattern. Though it seems there is potentially a quadratic overhead; I wonder how much it's possible to improve that?pic.twitter.com/cc5AdXS9GD
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Something that seems unclear in the paper - or maybe I misread - is whether the sheet they made is universal. It seems the pattern is universal, but they didn't build actuators & controllers which could do an arbitrary pattern of folds. In principle that could presumably be done
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Ah, the conclusion pretty much confirms this: it's possible, but they didn't do it (they had one-way actuators)pic.twitter.com/NLpVQSa1Ex
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I believe - I'm not sure - that something similar is true of many proteins: they can fold into several different forms, and those different forms can all be useful. (Not universal in the same sense, but multi-purpose in a useful way!)
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