ACTIVE AUXETICS

This project focuses on creating auxetic lattices that actively respond to heat. These auxetics are created by layering two kinds of plastics that have very different coefficients of thermal expansion, so when heat is applied, one material will expand significantly more than the other, causing the dual-layered piece to bend. I worked on these auxetics at the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT with Athina Papdopoulou.

While working on this project, I built lattices and experimented with different geometries, and then tested them to see how changing temperatures affected movement.
 
This project was published in the book Active Matter, a collection of papers and projects relating to the emerging field surrounding active matter, edited by Skylar Tibbits. Find it here. For more information about this project, and a video showing more lattices, check out this article on Dezeen, and this article from The Creators Project. For more about the Self-Assembly Lab, visit their website here.