Rapid Assemblers:From Analog to Digital Additive

Manufacturing

ComputationalComputationalSynthesis LabSynthesis Lab

Hod Lipson, Jonathan HillerMechanical & Aerospace EngineeringComputing & Information ScienceCornell University

Conclusions

• Digital Materials– Comprise lattice of physical voxels– High precision, work with incompatible materials – Tunable properties

• Rapid Assemblers– Assembles millions of prefabricated components into a

integrated active structure– Parallel (laser printer)– Serial (inkjet printer)

Printable Robots

Fab@home Model 1

Fab@home Model 2

With Max Lobovsky

With Larry Bonassar, Daniel Cohen

Zinc-air Batteries

Zinc-Air

IPMC Actuators

With Evan Malone

Gershenfeld, 2005

Digital Materials

70010,00025,00080,000187,000363,0001,000,0004,500,000

• Challenges• How to make voxels • How to assemble billions of voxels• How to simulate and design voxel-based systems

Key Challenges

• How to fabricate voxels

• How to assemble billions of voxels

• How to simulate and design in voxel space

Printing Digital Materials

Parallel Assembly

Material Feeder

Build Chamber

Fabricator

With Jonathan Hiller

Spheres

3D Circuits

3D Circuits

Printing Digital Materials

Rapid Serial Assembly

VoxJet

Accelerated x4

Voxels

Tunable Material Properties

Tiles

Modeling - COMSOL

Simulating: Relaxation

Tile Precision

Dithering Materials

Tuning Elastic modulus

Acrylic / Aluminum Dithering

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

% Aluminum

Ela

stic

mo

du

lus

(MP

a)

Tuning CTE

CTE, Aluminum/Zirconium Tungstate

-1.00E-02

-5.00E-03

0.00E+00

5.00E-03

1.00E-02

1.50E-02

2.00E-02

25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95

Temperater (C)

Elo

ng

atio

n (

mm

)

100% Al

0% Al

15% Al

43%Al

Auxetic Materials

Spheres

Precision

x 0.5 x 0.1

Smart Voxels

Future Directions

500 µm

500µm

Electrical conductivity

3D Micro-fluidics

Heterogeneous Tissue Engineering

Gershenfeld, 2005

From Analog to Digital

Conclusions

• Digital Materials– Comprise lattice of physical voxels– High precision, work with incompatible materials – Tunable properties

• Rapid Assemblers– Assembles millions of prefabricated components into a integrated

active structure– Parallel (laser printer)– Serial (inkjet printer)

• New functionality– Desktop manufacturing of complex, 3D integrated active devices,

without special tooling

Jeff I. Lipton

Daniel L. Cohen Evan Malone

Jonathan Hiller