How to make big things out of small pieces | Hacker News Reader

How to make big things out of small pieces

web.mit.edu

28 pointstokenadult6 comments

" The new material, the researchers say, could revolutionize the assembly of airplanes, spacecraft, and even larger structures, such as dikes and levees."

I hate sentences like that when journalists are talking about a scientific paper. I feel like I read one of those every week--and they're rarely revolutionary, usually just the next step in what has been a long process of discovery and may not even change things that much, especially as far as the average Joe is concerned.

So let me ask someone who knows more about this than I do the questions I really want the science-covering media to answer: How realistic is it that this will become a reality, whether physically or financially? By when? And how will it impact me?

> Like the buckle on a seat belt, they are designed to be strong in the directions of forces that might be applied in normal use, and require pressure in an entirely different direction in order to be released.

Let's pretend you build a bridge out of this material. Could the direction of force you'd need to apply to dissemble it capable of being generated by an earthquake, or by harmonic oscillation of winds (eg Tacoma Narrows)? It would be tragic to see a bridge with cars on it dissolve into cubes like the spaceship in Super 8.

anyone have an image of a single cell, and how it is assembled from the individual (flat?) pieces?

the paper is paywalled. googling cuboct isn't turning up much.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but there are accessible papers listed at http://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/index.html Three of the listed papers have Cheung as an author/co-author, the first two look relevant to his conceptual and research progression.

I'm confused. How big are the cells? How do they attach and unattach.

"How do they attach and unattach"

FTA: "The team is now developing an assembler robot that can crawl, insectlike, over the surface of a growing structure, adding pieces one by one to the existing structure."

FTA: "Cheung produced flat, cross-shaped composite pieces that were clipped into a cubic lattice of octahedral cells, a structure called a “cuboct” — which is similar to the crystal structure of the mineral perovskite, a major component of Earth’s crust. While the individual components can be disassembled for repairs or recycling, there’s no risk of them falling apart on their own, the researchers explain. Like the buckle on a seat belt, they are designed to be strong in the directions of forces that might be applied in normal use, and require pressure in an entirely different direction in order to be released."

There was slightly more info in the article, but these sections were the most relevant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com