Zipped assembly

Biology creates assemblies with orders of magnitude more parts than any known human designed process. Molecular biology functions on the premise that fundamental building blocks assemble into chains, are zipped into strands and folded into structures. This thesis is a macroscale implementation that aims to do the same, assemble, zip and fold, in an inorganic system. This system, Zipped, utilizes distributed coalescence of parts, aiming for faster assembly while incorporating error correction into the fabrication process. This thesis presents a design for 0-dimensional building blocks that snap together to form 1-dimensional strands. Strands zip together, interlocking to form 2-dimensional beams that can branch and merge to create patterns or flat sheets. Strands can zip to each other out of plane as well, allowing 3-dimensional construction.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Falcone, Sara Elizabeth.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Neil A. Gershenfeld.

• Program in Media Arts and Sciences

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

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

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129871

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/129871