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This is me building a prototype

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for six hours straight.

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This is slave labor to my own project.

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This is what the DIY and maker movements really look like.

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And this is an analogy for today's construction and manufacturing world

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with brute-force assembly techniques.

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And this is exactly why I started studying

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how to program physical materials to build themselves.

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But there is another world.

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Today at the micro- and nanoscales,

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there's an unprecedented revolution happening.

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And this is the ability to program physical and biological materials

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to change shape, change properties

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and even compute outside of silicon-based matter.

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There's even a software called cadnano

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that allows us to design three-dimensional shapes

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like nano robots or drug delivery systems

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and use DNA to self-assemble those functional structures.

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But if we look at the human scale,

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there's massive problems that aren't being addressed

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by those nanoscale technologies.

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If we look at construction and manufacturing,

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there's major inefficiencies, energy consumption

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and excessive labor techniques.

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In infrastructure, let's just take one example.

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Take piping.

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In water pipes, we have fixed-capacity water pipes

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that have fixed flow rates, except for expensive pumps and valves.

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We bury them in the ground.

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If anything changes -- if the environment changes,

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the ground moves, or demand changes --

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we have to start from scratch and take them out and replace them.

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So I'd like to propose that we can combine those two worlds,

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that we can combine the world of the nanoscale programmable adaptive materials

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and the built environment.

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And I don't mean automated machines.

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I don't just mean smart machines that replace humans.

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But I mean programmable materials that build themselves.

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And that's called self-assembly,

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which is a process by which disordered parts build an ordered structure

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through only local interaction.

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So what do we need if we want to do this at the human scale?

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We need a few simple ingredients.

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The first ingredient is materials and geometry,

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and that needs to be tightly coupled with the energy source.

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And you can use passive energy --

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so heat, shaking, pneumatics, gravity, magnetics.

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And then you need smartly designed interactions.

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And those interactions allow for error correction,

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and they allow the shapes to go from one state to another state.

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So now I'm going to show you a number of projects that we've built,

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from one-dimensional, two-dimensional, three-dimensional

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and even four-dimensional systems.

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So in one-dimensional systems --

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this is a project called the self-folding proteins.

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And the idea is that you take the three-dimensional structure of a protein --

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in this case it's the crambin protein --

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you take the backbone -- so no cross-linking, no environmental interactions --

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and you break that down into a series of components.

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And then we embed elastic.

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And when I throw this up into the air and catch it,

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it has the full three-dimensional structure of the protein, all of the intricacies.

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And this gives us a tangible model

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of the three-dimensional protein and how it folds

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and all of the intricacies of the geometry.

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So we can study this as a physical, intuitive model.

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And we're also translating that into two-dimensional systems --

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so flat sheets that can self-fold into three-dimensional structures.

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In three dimensions, we did a project last year at TEDGlobal

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with Autodesk and Arthur Olson

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where we looked at autonomous parts --

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so individual parts not pre-connected that can come together on their own.

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And we built 500 of these glass beakers.

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They had different molecular structures inside

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and different colors that could be mixed and matched.

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And we gave them away to all the TEDsters.

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And so these became intuitive models

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to understand how molecular self-assembly works at the human scale.

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This is the polio virus.

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You shake it hard and it breaks apart.

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And then you shake it randomly

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and it starts to error correct and built the structure on its own.

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And this is demonstrating that through random energy,

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we can build non-random shapes.

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We even demonstrated that we can do this at a much larger scale.

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Last year at TED Long Beach,

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we built an installation that builds installations.

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The idea was, could we self-assemble furniture-scale objects?

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So we built a large rotating chamber,

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and people would come up and spin the chamber faster or slower,

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adding energy to the system

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and getting an intuitive understanding of how self-assembly works

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and how we could use this

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as a macroscale construction or manufacturing technique for products.

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So remember, I said 4D.

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So today for the first time, we're unveiling a new project,

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which is a collaboration with Stratasys,

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and it's called 4D printing.

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The idea behind 4D printing

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is that you take multi-material 3D printing --

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so you can deposit multiple materials --

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and you add a new capability,

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which is transformation,

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that right off the bed,

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the parts can transform from one shape to another shape directly on their own.

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And this is like robotics without wires or motors.

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So you completely print this part,

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and it can transform into something else.

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We also worked with Autodesk on a software they're developing called Project Cyborg.

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And this allows us to simulate this self-assembly behavior

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and try to optimize which parts are folding when.

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But most importantly, we can use this same software

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for the design of nanoscale self-assembly systems

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and human scale self-assembly systems.

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These are parts being printed with multi-material properties.

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Here's the first demonstration.

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A single strand dipped in water

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that completely self-folds on its own

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into the letters M I T.

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I'm biased.

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This is another part, single strand, dipped in a bigger tank

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that self-folds into a cube, a three-dimensional structure, on its own.

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So no human interaction.

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And we think this is the first time

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that a program and transformation

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has been embedded directly into the materials themselves.

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And it also might just be the manufacturing technique

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that allows us to produce more adaptive infrastructure in the future.

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So I know you're probably thinking,

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okay, that's cool, but how do we use any of this stuff for the built environment?

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So I've started a lab at MIT,

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and it's called the Self-Assembly Lab.

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And we're dedicated to trying to develop programmable materials

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for the built environment.

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And we think there's a few key sectors

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that have fairly near-term applications.

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One of those is in extreme environments.

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These are scenarios where it's difficult to build,

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our current construction techniques don't work,

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it's too large, it's too dangerous, it's expensive, too many parts.

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And space is a great example of that.

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We're trying to design new scenarios for space

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that have fully reconfigurable and self-assembly structures

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that can go from highly functional systems from one to another.

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Let's go back to infrastructure.

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In infrastructure, we're working with a company out of Boston called Geosyntec.

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And we're developing a new paradigm for piping.

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Imagine if water pipes could expand or contract

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to change capacity or change flow rate,

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or maybe even undulate like peristaltics to move the water themselves.

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So this isn't expensive pumps or valves.

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This is a completely programmable and adaptive pipe on its own.

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So I want to remind you today

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of the harsh realities of assembly in our world.

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These are complex things built with complex parts

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that come together in complex ways.

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So I would like to invite you from whatever industry you're from

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to join us in reinventing and reimagining the world,

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how things come together from the nanoscale to the human scale,

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so that we can go from a world like this

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to a world that's more like this.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)