Self assembling magnetic tiles

Self assembly is an emerging technology in the field of manufacturing. Inspired by nature's ability to self assembly proteins from amino acids, this thesis attempts to demonstrate self assembly on the macro-scale. The primary focus of the thesis was to improve the design of magnetic tile self assembly. By constructing a flexible chain embedded with permanent magnets, self assembly is achieved through magnetic interaction. Theory has shown that such a chain is capable of self assembling into any 3D shape without self-intersection. The 3D shape created by the chain is predetermined by the sequence of the tiles. For this thesis, two chains were manufactured, each self assembling into one distinct shape. One chain self assembled into a sphere while the other self assembled into a '3-leaf clover'. An important characteristic shared by the two chains is that they both were constructed from 48 tiles that had the same proportion of north-pole and south-pole facing magnets. The difference between the two 3D shapes created is a direct result of the magnet tile sequencing, only. To connect the tiles, two different types of connectors were designed: one rigid and one flexible.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Rabl, Jessica A. (Jessica Ann)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joseph Jacobson.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36713

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36713