Bioinspired weather-responsive adaptive shading

Interesting but the brief doesn't explain what 4-D printing is, which sort of reduces whatever technique they used to a cheap buzzword.

If I was less lazy I'd read the cites and report back, but alas, sloth.

Edit: OK, I've done it. It's just 3D printing objects that change shape over time once they're printed, 3D-ly. I really like that people are thinking about how to achieve this environmentally mediated shape changes but the marketing buzzwords suuuuuuuuck

Amazing and very aesthetically pleasing!

Before reading the article I was thinking "if this was passive that would be som neat" ... and it is passive, wow.

The scientists used the movement mechanisms of pine cones as a model for the "Solar Gate", which opens and closes in response to changes in humidity and temperature without consuming any metabolic energy.

The material changes shape based on the amount of humidity in the air. The article doesn’t explain how that makes it respond to sunlight, which is what their demonstration system does. I didn’t think sunlight and humidity were always correlated. Am I missing something obvious?

I wonder why they went with that shape, surely it's possible to design anything if you start from the principle that some materials expand when moist and contract when dry. I guess it's an efficient tiling

epic stuff!

the same method can be used for actuators. we'll see a lot of this used in mitigation of and adaptation to climate change consequences.