Skylar Tibbits


Skylar Tibbits: Can we make things that make themselves?

Uploaded on Sep 1, 2011

MIT researcher Skylar Tibbits works on self-assembly -- the idea that instead of building something (a chair, a skyscraper), we can create materials that build themselves, much the way a strand of DNA zips itself together. It's a big concept at early stages; Tibbits shows us three in-the-lab projects that hint at what a self-assembling future might look like.


Skylar Tibbits - Self-assembly line

Published on Mar 1, 2012

Skylar Tibbits demonstrates his Self-Assembly Line at TED2012, Long Beach. Video by Karen Eng


Skylar Tibbits: The emergence of "4D printing"

Published on Apr 4, 2013

3D printing has grown in sophistication since the late 1970s; TED Fellow Skylar Tibbits is shaping the next development, which he calls 4D printing, where the fourth dimension is time. This emerging technology will allow us to print objects that then reshape themselves or self-assemble over time. Think: a printed cube that folds before your eyes, or a printed pipe able to sense the need to expand or contract.
 

Self-assembly: The power of organizing the unorganized - Skylar Tibbits

Published on Apr 8, 2013

From something as familiar as our bodies to things vast as the formation of galaxies, we can observe the process of self-assembly, or when unordered parts come together in an organized structure. Skylar Tibbits explains how we see self-assembly at work in biology and chemistry -- and even in our future technologies.

Lesson by Skylar Tibbits, animation by London Squared Productions.
 
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