Additive assembly of digital materials

This thesis develops the use of additive assembly of press-fit digital materials as a new rapid-prototyping process. Digital materials consist of a finite set of parts that have discrete connections and occupy discrete space. Part geometries were designed and fabricated at different scales from different materials, including hierarchical voxels which connect across different scales. All parts were designed to be vertically assembled with top and bottom connections. Digital materials are discussed as a new way for building physically reconfigurable, multi-material 3D structures. The parts were designed with press-fit connectors to build reversible assemblies to take full advantage of reuse and recycling. This document starts by describing some current technologies in the fields of rapid-prototyping and personal fabrication. The concept for a press-fit digital materials is defined and explained. Many part designs are documented, including conductor and insulator parts for SOIC-pitch 3D circuits and hierarchical assemblies. This thesis concludes with the design and concept for assembly machine to automate building functional digital materials.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Ward, Jonathan (Jonathan Daniel)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Neil Gershenfeld.

• Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

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/1721.1/62084

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/62084