AWARD YEAR
2021
CATEGORY
Body
GOALS
Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure
KEYWORDS
object, transform, 3d, biomimicry
COUNTRY
United States of America
DESIGNED BY
Cornell University
WEBSITE
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6360/210
3D-morphing skin
Transform a flat object into a 3D structure by inflating membranes
Technologies that use stretchable materials are increasingly important, yet we are unable to control how they stretch with much more sophistication than inflating balloons. Nature, however, demonstrates remarkable control of stretchable surfaces; for example, cephalopods can project hierarchical structures from their skin in milliseconds for a wide range of textural camouflage. Inspired by cephalopod muscular morphology, we developed synthetic tissue groupings that allowed programmable transformation of two-dimensional (2D) stretchable surfaces into target 3D shapes. The synthetic tissue groupings consisted of elastomeric membranes embedded with inextensible textile mesh that inflated to within 10% of their target shapes by using a simple fabrication method and modeling approach. These stretchable surfaces transform from flat sheets to 3D textures that imitate natural stone and plant shapes and camouflage into their background environments.