What Can Intelligent Materials Do? - with Skylar Tibbits

How can we design simple and elegant intelligent materials, that may one day animate and improve themselves?
Buy Skylar's book: geni.us/3ORQAAE
Watch the Q&A: • Q&A What Can Intellige...
Today’s researchers are designing materials that physically sense, adapt, and fall together instead of apart. From furniture that builds itself and flat shoes that jump into shape, to islands that grow themselves.
In this talk, Skylar discusses how materials can exhibit behaviours that we typically associate with biological organisms, the challenges we face and how they can help us create a sustainable future.
Skylar Tibbits is a designer and computer scientist whose research focuses on developing self-assembly and programmable materials within the built environment. Tibbits is the founder and co-director of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT, and Associate Professor of Design Research in the Department of Architecture.
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[@nickhollerauer4295]

This is the first time in a long time that I have genuinely been blown away by the sheer genius of an idea. Growing sand bars by putting a certain, very specific shape underwater to protect the coasts of islands is such a brilliant idea I literally had to sit down to keep from falling over. I don't know why I'm so impressed by it but I am. Letting nature produce a structure by just using a simple obstacle to coerce the organic flow of sand in a specific way...it's like something elves would do. It makes so much sense and it's so innovative. Just...hats off to these guys. Bravo.

[@ascgazz7347]

Engineers don’t get enough credit. Awesome presentation, many thanks!

[@stanlibuda96]

I clicked the vid without any expectations and after three minutes I'm hooked. Not bad.

[@ChrisWoj]

These Royal Institution videos rarely fail to deliver. I even watch some of the stuff intended for youth, the people they bring in to speak are top notch.

[@JohnDlugosz]

First examples of self-assembly at the macro-scale: You've been beat by many decades. I recall reading about a set of blocks with various carefully shaped hooks that would be put into a large case and shaken. This demonstrated both self-assembly where they would "polymerize", and replication where one string would guide the creation of an exact duplicate.

[@Games_and_Music]

I do remember seeing a video about that as well, magnetized and programmed parts that over time formed a structure, but it's been a while, and i've not really seen or heard any big breakthroughs in that field. Not that i've actively followed it, but usually you'll hear about that stuff from time to time.

[@tonyrainbolt9388]

I lost count how many times my mind has been blown by this video!

[@karltraunmuller7048]

Very cool. Also: I like fast-paced presentations.

[@ignorasmus]

@37:17 - This stuff about self assembly of objects under incidentally correct conditions, is amazing! This has deep implications about the nature of entropy and it's local level decrease, emergence of extremely complex systems like life and consciousness and a great reference to be given to Theists who claim nothing meaningful can happen without the intervention of "God".

[@avelkm]

That's a very well spend hour! Thanks, shifts a perspective for me!

[@gmotionedc5412]

A watch band that expands or shrinks as needed when you go thru the day!! I’ll buy that all day long. 👍👍

[@Buildings1772]

manufactures: we don't care much for polymer. how about wood or leather or something? designer: okay got it, Introducing; Polymer Wood! manufactures: -_-

[@steverichmond7142]

This exists in many different forms.

[@avelkm]

That's called a composit and much of the construction wood is a composite - plywood, chipwood, mdf etc with different amount of binder

[@steveb1243]

Brilliant. One of my favourite RI videos.

[@JohnDlugosz]

Well *more* than a decade ago, "programmable matter" was coined by writer Wil McCarthy to refer to semiconductors that express synthetic electron orbitals on its surface. These can be controlled precisely, to mimic the properties of chemical elements. This meaning is/was widespread in the Science Fiction community. Also, the first mention of a CAD system was by science fiction author Robert A Heinlein, in _The Door Into Summer_ published in 1956.

[@mpaczkow]

The answer to building programmable materials: one can formulate materials to undergo bimodal or spinodal decomposition to develop morphologies that are predictable. The trigger is a phase separation in either solubility and/or temperature. Fascinating field of study.

[@bizzybgful]

I do this every day, without knowing the intricate of doing it, great job!

[@ProfessorJayTee]

"Manmade structures never win." *Netherlands laughs in the background...*

[@axelpatrickb.pingol3228]

You mean they won without maintaining it?

[@ProfessorJayTee]

@@axelpatrickb.pingol3228 I mean Netherlands manmade structures HAVE BEEN defeating nature for centuries. Nobody said maintenance was forbidden. they simply stated an (incorrect) absolute.

[@juliaf_]

Some climate change studies have to exclude the Dutch cause they're just too good at engineering

[@2112jonr]

@@axelpatrickb.pingol3228Just like your mind then !

[@Games_and_Music]

The Netherlands will be a giant floating island by the end of the century, or... under water :P I live in Flevoland, several meters below sea level, so, once the "Afsluitdijk" (Closing Dam) gives in, we're probably the first to go. So i do hope we come up with something.

[@imanlloyd4521]

Amazing! Wonderful to see what is being developed.

[@Ashlynn.HudsonWelburn]

This island growing research is very intriguing. It's not my sector, but because of where I live in the UK I have a strong interest in the sustainability of marine aggregate extraction. This type of research feels like it has tremendous scope to impact / benefit this field. I'm very curious if this is something being studied yet. This has been a very illuminating talk!

[@earthbound9381]

I had no idea that there are brilliant guys like Skylar who can think so outside the box to come up with such ingenious solutions to advanced manufacture. I found this video totally absorbing. Makes me wonder an alien civilization who has conquered such self-assembly design long ago who can now build seamless smart spacecraft and clothing.

[@X1Y0Z0]

Thanks for your presentation!

[@GeezerGotGame]

Wow! Absolutely fascinating.

[@matc87]

well everything I just seen was pretty cool. exciting stuff

[@dinogodor7210]

This is a really brilliant study and what you've done by experimentation has implications not spoken of in it - it's much harder to do stuff like this in the macro scale than with molecules and this indisputably shows how life could have randomly occurred by wriggling stuff about on the large scale... It shows many principals of self-organization that theologically minded people would deem improbable nay impossible. Apart from that I do hope to see some of your work implemented in open source projects as the ability to form say interconnected pillows of silicone sharing a common source of pressure is something that would have many applications even small businesses or private persons could ... erm... enjoy :)

[@JediBuddhist]

Best presentation this year. Thanks

[@p.m.rangarajan1055]

Speechless. Wonderful. Hats-off you guys. The way the progress is made, if a bridge is built to Moon, I wont be surprised.

[@Games_and_Music]

There are those materials that return to their initial shape when heated up, or cooled, i wonder if a conjunction could be used to make some kind of butterfly, or some other type of winged or self propelling craft.

[@seasong7655]

Absolute wild technology. I hope it becomes available one day

[@strings1984]

So if you took your balls and could encode them with magnetic locks controlled by spin then sheer the vortex you could get atp speed and control on construction. Changing the shape balled up or extended would help control the particle size and which attaches where, I found the clumping cell like formation particularly interesting, I imagine at the cellular level the pressure of the cytoplasm coupled with the fluid dynamics, stirred up by protein synthesis and controlled by the bladders of the cell membranes, plays a role in what base building blocks the cell has to work with and ultimately what it is likely to build or do.

[@warsameadam5572]

👏 👏 great lecture thank you

[@stephanieparker1250]

This is amazing! 🙌

[@marwam3309]

Very interesting and informative 👍

[@RWBHere]

Thank-you. If you have not done so yet, you might want to liaise with the researchers who are growing replacement human organs, including hearts and oesophagi. They use frameworks and appropriate cells, to grow living and functioning organs which might not be rejected, if grown using the patient's own body cells.

[@AlexanderGosselin]

This is utterly fantastic.

[@randomcreations4439]

Great presentation

[@stevoofd]

This blew my mind

[@RWBHere]

I hope that it recovers. 😁

[@bklanyon176]

Reminds me of protein folding

[@deansmith4752]

The future is very bright.... Though phase changing metals from liquid to solid and back again petty much sounds like every other metal.

[@luderickwong]

so, is chemistry and medicine production kind of the entry door of your description? we know substance a & b mix together will form x. we didn't assemble “lego” every single particle of substance x by the chemist. is that what it is looking for in this topic?

[@ahcenemallem7901]

Please, is it possible to reprogram the material more than once, I mean after obtaining an initial shape by programming it, is it possible to reshape a different new shape and program it to interact with an external stimulus to give shape

[@safdarsafdari7289]

great job

[@valentyn.kostiuk]

Thought it will be an hour about nitinol. So happy I was wrong.

[@patrickhultgren8652]

This should be required education for environmentalists, in fact it should be part of the required curriculum in our school system!

[@2ndviolin]

What about the dutch coastline?

[@reng7777]

i am wordless with this magnificent innitiative!!!

[@randomdude2540]

Brilliant

[@toddwhitbread6523]

This like growing a tree into a house. Instead of manipulating the raw material once grown?

[@citizizen]

Pretty Cool!

[@deepakk2699]

For most of the lecture videos, I will end up sleeping, mainly on webcam selfie videos. I knew the topic will be interesting but I was disappointed at the beginning because of the low professional video so I skipped the introduction part quickly and get into the main part, but what happened next is amazing, I literally feel charged, I don't know which hormone released in my brain but it was good, it is very informational and very hopeful technology, I don't have an idea that how the living cells start replicating and dividing themselves now I get a starting point, and how selfless things can form into some meaningful structures, the potential of this thought process has a very wide application that I ever imagined Anyway thanks for sharing this information with us

[@alvarojm750]

Wild. Really wild.

[@marlou169]

Wow🤩

[@EricPham-ui6bt]

Would environmental adaptability is smart and survive all currently challenging condition like force, temperature extreme, elastic, sunlight interface ( so future we talk to the sun send the sun request then thing happens) and memory and able to use memory to self reseting but that maybe asking for too much but like president Kennedy said if it is easy then not worth trying

[@metakron]

When these smart materials are available to all, it will be difficult to distinguish organic from inorganic and then in my opinion they will replace all traditional robots and humans. Because if they have the same humanoid structure and if integrated with an artificial nervous system made of a superconducting material, then they can really replace a part of humanity and be completely Indistinguishable from the traditional human.

[@alan2here]

I've discovered before that an impressively strong and flexible spring can be laser cut from a thin layer of plywood. You end up with a sheet shaped spring, rather than a helical one.

[@MrChrisayre]

I believe this is the nature of spacetime... a spring

[@skmplanet9591]

Very very interesting new technology

[@yash1152]

24:36 doesnt look like shoe though??

[@superscatboy]

Yeah I couldn't see a shoe there either. Maybe someone that knows about shoe manufacturing would see it though.

[@LarsRyeJeppesen]

Very informative, Coach

[@beachboardfan9544]

This reminds me of some Neri Oxman type of stuff.

[@ZoonCrypticon]

@36:55 who is the poor, pitiful guy who has to roll up the strings back into a coil without making accidental knots?

[@apexpredator1018]

👍

[@Tacit_Tern]

I wonder if this could be done with quasicrystals and ceramics

[@mandarp9472]

Can researchers make a perfectly safe, affordable, non stick material for cooking. Non corrosive, affordable, durable material to be used in ships or in humid conditions.

[@danielhampton4165]

This is jiu jitsu construction/manufacturing

[@jamesstewart7224]

Nature is still abundant with creations ready for us to replicate, only for the good ! Mind :))

[@robjohnston1433]

"Creations ..."?!?!? Oh no! Is there a God-botherer among us?

[@jamesstewart7224]

@@robjohnston1433 do the evolution🤭

[@existncdotcom5277]

.By the toil of others we are led into the presence of things which have been brought from darkness into light. - Seneca

[@yash1152]

23:11 clips without handles

[@ReasonableForseeability]

This is HUGE. Maybe the "next big thing". I'm blown away.

[@jwyliecullick8976]

No small hubris in the salesman

[@fwd79]

Good idea but this is still _mostly_ program-once approach, isn't it? But this also feels like a precursor to Star Trek's Replicator. A step-up from regular 3D printer nevertheless. Keep it up.

[@theknowledge.6869]

Abra-kadabra ! !

[@primemagi]

Informative and fluent presentation. Thank you. Ferydoon Shirazi. MG1

[@ili626]

But what’s up with reverse engineering recovered alien tech and materials?

[@subliminalvibes]

Madonna sang a song about this in 1984.

[@abemi869]

Name?

[@subliminalvibes]

@@abemi869 Search KZbin for "Madonna", and also two key-words from the title of this video and you'll see the track appear in the top results. Let me know what you find. 👍😎

[@maxmustermann5353]

A bit much hype if you ask me. Most of the things mentioned, already exist in some way in a product. Most of them have a fairly limited use case. Never the less in these use cases they allow for neat things. The adaptive air inlet for Airbus reminds me of F1 engineers, trying to get around the rules and regulations for their aerodynamics. When the inspector came by, the component was like the rules mandated it. But on the racetrack it deformed to a shape, which was aerodynamically advantageous. Granular jamming is used in stretchers to fixate the patient in one location for transport. In construction it is used in rock bolts to load rocks in compression to form a stable structure. The problem are the limitations. In many cases they outweigh the benefits to emerge broadly in every day items.

[@chlodnia]

SMART mini. Thanks

[@praveentiwari3944]

Industrial robotics have huge semiconductor waste issues

[@frankdaze2353]

Truly inspiring stuff. This kind of work is what will shape our future. (Lol.. get it?)

[@MoempfLP]

They invented a lot of crazy things. And they use that to create clothes you don't have to change when the temperature changes.

[@realcygnus]

Nifty

[@superscatboy]

"Skylar Tibbits" sounds like a name from a Monty Python sketch.

[@Eldorado1239]

You criticize 3D printing and robotics yet those are used at industrial scales to build both chips and buildings or even rockets. Meanwhile you show what looks liked cool STEM projects for high-school teams. Any real use-case? Final product? Anything? Besides biomed where it makes sense but where it was already invented afaik.

[@yash1152]

32:41 this granualr jamming: non-newtonian fluids - quicksand for example.

[@KillsAll.]

Guy you just created material for real life m’n’f’n TRANSFORMERS or Kylie Hills basilisk to destroy humanity. Ah hail yeah

[@benelbert4764]

Facinating

[@SamIIs]

This would be good for large parabolic radio telescopes.

[@JoannaHammond]

I am sick to death of the "intelligent", "smart" label being used for these things. They are not smart, they are not intelligent, they are just engineered to act a certain way.

[@YawnGod]

We use lots of words but we don't believe what we say.

[@anteconfig5391]

I liked the one were they collaborated with nature.

[@victormichaelwest1805]

:)

[@adityatayde98]

Please make video on Microbiology

[@winstonsmasterplan]

Please get back to in person presentations. There is something special about a talk being held in person with an audience

[@tkeleth2931]

Oh hey, have you heard about the coronavirus pandemic? It's unnecessarily dangerous to gather in large numbers or encourage high rates of human contact.

[@abemi869]

The world has changed. Get used to it.

[@fburton8]

A temporary way forward might be to do it the way of some of the recent Gresham lectures, with the speaker in the lecture hall talking *as if* to an assembled audience. You get a bit of the normal ambience with that, though not the audience reactions of course.

[@winstonsmasterplan]

@@tkeleth2931 so according to you we will need to be devoid of human contact until further notice or until it’s deemed ‘safe’ to do so? My wider point is by hiding behind the vail you present you deny the opportunity to learn. Yes you can watch a presentation via zoom but there is ceremony in gathering and sharing knowledge, it is inspirational to sit and watch a talk in person, not to mention being able to discuss ideas in person rather than in a comments section. You can safely go to the shops and other events but it’s ‘unnecessarily dangerous’ for the RI to hold talks? Be real…

[@winstonsmasterplan]

@@abemi869 forever?

[@dhindaravrel8712]

Based on what's being presented, this sounds like it's yet another use of plastics, which we already have too much of in this world.

[@axelpatrickb.pingol3228]

Depends on what is your definition of "plastics". "Plastics" need not be made from hydrocarbons, you can make plastic out of milk and vinegar...

[@superscatboy]

Did you skip past the parts that focused on wood and metal?

[@dhindaravrel8712]

@@superscatboy That 3D-printed stuff that looks like wood is made of platic, isn't it?

[@yash1152]

15:18 17:22 autodesk inc omg

[@yash1152]

15:07

[@dhgfffhcdujhv5643]

Jack Fresco vison finaly in the making.

[@eriktempelman2097]

Calling something "smart" infers that other things are "dumb". Something to be mindful of. After all, it's "dumb" steels that make your car lighter today. Excellent presentation of course, just be careful when you say "smart".

[@thefinn12345]

Honestly kind of depressing. I really thought at the cutting edge there would be a lot more advancement here.

[@garcesce]

The problem with cutting edge, is that, it’s not always accessible for the regular person. Some of these technologies seem to be practical and accessible, I like the contributions it can make to the outdated construction industry.

[@thefinn12345]

@@garcesce My comment probably sounded more negative than I meant it to be. I was kind of hopeful for some nano-tech solutions or something.

[@axelpatrickb.pingol3228]

@@thefinn12345 We're not there yet. And as the previous commentator said, "cutting edge" is not only inaccessible to common folk but very expensive. It's like the Sega Game Gear: it's far more advanced than the Nintendo Gameboy in a tech perspective but it expensive both to buy and maintain using...

[@TheClubPlazma]

Dude just watch Terminator 2

[@guydewhitney9247]

The most important thing for future designers to have in their bones is the difference between real things and ephemeral things. Anything I can't put in a box and bury for a hundred years in expectation that when my great-grandkid opens it she will find a working, (assuming power etc), whatever instead of a piece of old junk is...temporarily useful...junk with no 'real' value.

[@tkeleth2931]

Good quality products in a functioning capitalist system aren't an optimal choice for production, unfortunately. Things are only going to get *more* ephemeral in the upcoming future.

[@superscatboy]

So something only has value if it still has value after 100 years? How many things that you rely upon in your daily life are 100+ years old? Is everything else valueless? Is everything else not real?

[@stephenhanson3309]

interesting, tedious

[@4ll4ll]

can i come clean your bathroom and let me watch

[@thartwig]

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