WEBVTT 00:00:00.650 --> 00:00:02.898 I have a friend in Portugal 00:00:02.898 --> 00:00:05.322 whose grandfather built a vehicle out of a bicycle 00:00:05.322 --> 00:00:08.474 and a washing machine so he could transport his family. 00:00:08.474 --> 00:00:11.018 He did it because he couldn't afford a car, 00:00:11.018 --> 00:00:13.922 but also because he knew how to build one. 00:00:13.922 --> 00:00:17.058 There was a time when we understood how things worked 00:00:17.058 --> 00:00:20.890 and how they were made, so we could build and repair them, 00:00:20.890 --> 00:00:22.017 or at the very least 00:00:22.017 --> 00:00:25.497 make informed decisions about what to buy. 00:00:25.497 --> 00:00:27.889 Many of these do-it-yourself practices 00:00:27.889 --> 00:00:31.098 were lost in the second half of the 20th century. 00:00:31.098 --> 00:00:34.770 But now, the maker community and the open-source model 00:00:34.770 --> 00:00:37.918 are bringing this kind of knowledge about how things work 00:00:37.918 --> 00:00:41.113 and what they're made of back into our lives, 00:00:41.113 --> 00:00:44.137 and I believe we need to take them to the next level, 00:00:44.137 --> 00:00:47.105 to the components things are made of. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:47.105 --> 00:00:49.257 For the most part, we still know 00:00:49.257 --> 00:00:52.779 what traditional materials like paper and textiles are made of 00:00:52.779 --> 00:00:54.808 and how they are produced. 00:00:54.808 --> 00:00:58.871 But now we have these amazing, futuristic composites -- 00:00:58.871 --> 00:01:01.074 plastics that change shape, 00:01:01.074 --> 00:01:03.426 paints that conduct electricity, 00:01:03.426 --> 00:01:07.842 pigments that change color, fabrics that light up. 00:01:07.842 --> 00:01:11.213 Let me show you some examples. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:14.169 --> 00:01:17.885 So conductive ink allows us to paint circuits 00:01:17.885 --> 00:01:19.828 instead of using the traditional 00:01:19.828 --> 00:01:22.426 printed circuit boards or wires. 00:01:22.426 --> 00:01:24.815 In the case of this little example I'm holding, 00:01:24.815 --> 00:01:28.696 we used it to create a touch sensor that reacts to my skin 00:01:28.696 --> 00:01:31.411 by turning on this little light. 00:01:31.411 --> 00:01:34.506 Conductive ink has been used by artists, 00:01:34.506 --> 00:01:37.881 but recent developments indicate that we will soon be able 00:01:37.881 --> 00:01:42.376 to use it in laser printers and pens. 00:01:42.376 --> 00:01:44.706 And this is a sheet of acrylic infused 00:01:44.706 --> 00:01:47.502 with colorless light-diffusing particles. 00:01:47.502 --> 00:01:50.119 What this means is that, while regular acrylic 00:01:50.119 --> 00:01:52.467 only diffuses light around the edges, 00:01:52.467 --> 00:01:55.737 this one illuminates across the entire surface 00:01:55.737 --> 00:01:58.650 when I turn on the lights around it. 00:01:58.650 --> 00:02:00.952 Two of the known applications for this material 00:02:00.952 --> 00:02:06.065 include interior design and multi-touch systems. 00:02:06.065 --> 00:02:08.066 And thermochromic pigments 00:02:08.066 --> 00:02:10.679 change color at a given temperature. 00:02:10.679 --> 00:02:13.465 So I'm going to place this on a hot plate 00:02:13.465 --> 00:02:16.970 that is set to a temperature only slightly higher than ambient 00:02:16.970 --> 00:02:22.816 and you can see what happens. 00:02:22.816 --> 00:02:25.576 So one of the principle applications for this material 00:02:25.576 --> 00:02:28.818 is, amongst other things, in baby bottles, 00:02:28.818 --> 00:02:34.172 so it indicates when the contents are cool enough to drink. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:34.172 --> 00:02:36.928 So these are just a few of what are commonly known 00:02:36.928 --> 00:02:38.837 as smart materials. 00:02:38.837 --> 00:02:41.777 In a few years, they will be in many of the objects 00:02:41.777 --> 00:02:45.136 and technologies we use on a daily basis. 00:02:45.136 --> 00:02:49.350 We may not yet have the flying cars science fiction promised us, 00:02:49.350 --> 00:02:51.719 but we can have walls that change color 00:02:51.719 --> 00:02:53.481 depending on temperature, 00:02:53.481 --> 00:02:55.375 keyboards that roll up, 00:02:55.375 --> 00:02:59.807 and windows that become opaque at the flick of a switch. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:59.807 --> 00:03:02.312 So I'm a social scientist by training, 00:03:02.312 --> 00:03:06.169 so why am I here today talking about smart materials? 00:03:06.169 --> 00:03:08.882 Well first of all, because I am a maker. 00:03:08.882 --> 00:03:11.288 I'm curious about how things work 00:03:11.288 --> 00:03:12.915 and how they are made, 00:03:12.915 --> 00:03:16.223 but also because I believe we should have a deeper understanding 00:03:16.223 --> 00:03:19.044 of the components that make up our world, 00:03:19.044 --> 00:03:21.524 and right now, we don't know enough about 00:03:21.524 --> 00:03:25.213 these high-tech composites our future will be made of. 00:03:25.213 --> 00:03:28.738 Smart materials are hard to obtain in small quantities. 00:03:28.738 --> 00:03:32.778 There's barely any information available on how to use them, 00:03:32.778 --> 00:03:36.675 and very little is said about how they are produced. 00:03:36.675 --> 00:03:39.342 So for now, they exist mostly in this realm 00:03:39.342 --> 00:03:42.054 of trade secrets and patents 00:03:42.054 --> 00:03:46.166 only universities and corporations have access to. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:46.166 --> 00:03:49.015 So a little over three years ago, Kirsty Boyle and I 00:03:49.015 --> 00:03:52.232 started a project we called Open Materials. 00:03:52.232 --> 00:03:54.039 It's a website where we, 00:03:54.039 --> 00:03:56.551 and anyone else who wants to join us, 00:03:56.551 --> 00:03:59.607 share experiments, publish information, 00:03:59.607 --> 00:04:02.807 encourage others to contribute whenever they can, 00:04:02.807 --> 00:04:06.816 and aggregate resources such as research papers 00:04:06.816 --> 00:04:10.156 and tutorials by other makers like ourselves. 00:04:10.156 --> 00:04:12.778 We would like it to become a large, 00:04:12.778 --> 00:04:15.316 collectively generated database 00:04:15.316 --> 00:04:19.609 of do-it-yourself information on smart materials. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:19.609 --> 00:04:21.829 But why should we care 00:04:21.829 --> 00:04:25.592 how smart materials work and what they are made of? 00:04:25.592 --> 00:04:29.770 First of all, because we can't shape what we don't understand, 00:04:29.770 --> 00:04:32.122 and what we don't understand and use 00:04:32.122 --> 00:04:34.330 ends up shaping us. 00:04:34.330 --> 00:04:37.082 The objects we use, the clothes we wear, 00:04:37.082 --> 00:04:40.646 the houses we live in, all have a profound impact 00:04:40.646 --> 00:04:44.229 on our behavior, health and quality of life. 00:04:44.229 --> 00:04:47.370 So if we are to live in a world made of smart materials, 00:04:47.370 --> 00:04:50.729 we should know and understand them. 00:04:50.729 --> 00:04:53.073 Secondly, and just as important, 00:04:53.073 --> 00:04:56.433 innovation has always been fueled by tinkerers. 00:04:56.433 --> 00:04:59.818 So many times, amateurs, not experts, 00:04:59.818 --> 00:05:02.137 have been the inventors and improvers 00:05:02.137 --> 00:05:04.617 of things ranging from mountain bikes 00:05:04.617 --> 00:05:07.929 to semiconductors, personal computers, 00:05:07.929 --> 00:05:10.868 airplanes. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:10.868 --> 00:05:14.897 The biggest challenge is that material science is complex 00:05:14.897 --> 00:05:17.393 and requires expensive equipment. 00:05:17.393 --> 00:05:19.561 But that's not always the case. 00:05:19.561 --> 00:05:23.149 Two scientists at University of Illinois understood this 00:05:23.149 --> 00:05:25.749 when they published a paper on a simpler method 00:05:25.749 --> 00:05:28.169 for making conductive ink. 00:05:28.169 --> 00:05:30.081 Jordan Bunker, who had had 00:05:30.081 --> 00:05:33.041 no experience with chemistry until then, 00:05:33.041 --> 00:05:35.828 read this paper and reproduced the experiment 00:05:35.828 --> 00:05:40.217 at his maker space using only off-the-shelf substances 00:05:40.217 --> 00:05:41.809 and tools. 00:05:41.809 --> 00:05:43.410 He used a toaster oven, 00:05:43.410 --> 00:05:46.376 and he even made his own vortex mixer, 00:05:46.376 --> 00:05:50.411 based on a tutorial by another scientist/maker. 00:05:50.411 --> 00:05:53.163 Jordan then published his results online, 00:05:53.163 --> 00:05:56.651 including all the things he had tried and didn't work, 00:05:56.651 --> 00:05:59.795 so others could study and reproduce it. 00:05:59.795 --> 00:06:02.467 So Jordan's main form of innovation 00:06:02.467 --> 00:06:06.346 was to take an experiment created in a well-equipped lab 00:06:06.346 --> 00:06:07.848 at the university 00:06:07.848 --> 00:06:11.035 and recreate it in a garage in Chicago 00:06:11.035 --> 00:06:15.296 using only cheap materials and tools he made himself. 00:06:15.296 --> 00:06:17.569 And now that he published this work, 00:06:17.569 --> 00:06:19.293 others can pick up where he left 00:06:19.293 --> 00:06:23.837 and devise even simpler processes and improvements. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:23.837 --> 00:06:26.053 Another example I'd like to mention 00:06:26.053 --> 00:06:29.718 is Hannah Perner-Wilson's Kit-of-No-Parts. 00:06:29.718 --> 00:06:32.598 Her project's goal is to highlight 00:06:32.598 --> 00:06:35.070 the expressive qualities of materials 00:06:35.070 --> 00:06:40.094 while focusing on the creativity and skills of the builder. 00:06:40.094 --> 00:06:42.534 Electronics kits are very powerful 00:06:42.534 --> 00:06:45.086 in that they teach us how things work, 00:06:45.086 --> 00:06:48.062 but the constraints inherent in their design 00:06:48.062 --> 00:06:50.222 influence the way we learn. 00:06:50.222 --> 00:06:52.710 So Hannah's approach, on the other hand, 00:06:52.710 --> 00:06:55.926 is to formulate a series of techniques 00:06:55.926 --> 00:06:58.625 for creating unusual objects 00:06:58.625 --> 00:07:01.430 that free us from pre-designed constraints 00:07:01.430 --> 00:07:04.841 by teaching us about the materials themselves. 00:07:04.841 --> 00:07:07.574 So amongst Hannah's many impressive experiments, 00:07:07.574 --> 00:07:09.544 this is one of my favorites. 00:07:09.544 --> 00:07:12.961 ["Paper speakers"] 00:07:12.961 --> 00:07:16.239 What we're seeing here is just a piece of paper 00:07:16.239 --> 00:07:20.681 with some copper tape on it connected to an mp3 player 00:07:20.681 --> 00:07:22.334 and a magnet. 00:07:22.334 --> 00:07:29.983 (Music: "Happy Together") 00:07:32.931 --> 00:07:36.767 So based on the research by Marcelo Coelho from MIT, 00:07:36.767 --> 00:07:39.550 Hannah created a series of paper speakers 00:07:39.550 --> 00:07:41.953 out of a wide range of materials 00:07:41.953 --> 00:07:46.228 from simple copper tape to conductive fabric and ink. 00:07:46.228 --> 00:07:48.964 Just like Jordan and so many other makers, 00:07:48.964 --> 00:07:50.591 Hannah published her recipes 00:07:50.591 --> 00:07:55.725 and allows anyone to copy and reproduce them. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:55.725 --> 00:07:58.929 But paper electronics is one of the most promising branches 00:07:58.929 --> 00:08:00.736 of material science 00:08:00.736 --> 00:08:04.938 in that it allows us to create cheaper and flexible electronics. 00:08:04.938 --> 00:08:07.494 So Hannah's artisanal work, 00:08:07.494 --> 00:08:09.742 and the fact that she shared her findings, 00:08:09.742 --> 00:08:13.562 opens the doors to a series of new possibilities 00:08:13.562 --> 00:08:19.002 that are both aesthetically appealing and innovative. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:19.002 --> 00:08:21.907 So the interesting thing about makers 00:08:21.907 --> 00:08:24.950 is that we create out of passion and curiosity, 00:08:24.950 --> 00:08:27.029 and we are not afraid to fail. 00:08:27.029 --> 00:08:30.917 We often tackle problems from unconventional angles, 00:08:30.917 --> 00:08:33.906 and, in the process, end up discovering alternatives 00:08:33.906 --> 00:08:36.338 or even better ways to do things. 00:08:36.338 --> 00:08:40.106 So the more people experiment with materials, 00:08:40.106 --> 00:08:43.582 the more researchers are willing to share their research, 00:08:43.582 --> 00:08:46.022 and manufacturers their knowledge, 00:08:46.022 --> 00:08:48.862 the better chances we have to create technologies 00:08:48.862 --> 00:08:51.800 that truly serve us all. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:51.800 --> 00:08:54.293 So I feel a bit as Ted Nelson must have 00:08:54.293 --> 00:08:58.004 when, in the early 1970s, he wrote, 00:08:58.004 --> 00:09:01.002 "You must understand computers now." 00:09:01.002 --> 00:09:04.856 Back then, computers were these large mainframes 00:09:04.856 --> 00:09:06.986 only scientists cared about, 00:09:06.986 --> 00:09:09.706 and no one dreamed of even having one at home. 00:09:09.706 --> 00:09:12.682 So it's a little strange that I'm standing here and saying, 00:09:12.682 --> 00:09:15.722 "You must understand smart materials now." 00:09:15.722 --> 00:09:19.458 Just keep in mind that acquiring preemptive knowledge 00:09:19.458 --> 00:09:21.722 about emerging technologies 00:09:21.722 --> 00:09:24.119 is the best way to ensure that we have a say 00:09:24.119 --> 00:09:26.282 in the making of our future. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:26.282 --> 00:09:28.753 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:28.753 --> 00:09:32.753 (Applause)