I never mentioned: The rubber sheet is the stuff you use to makes stamps. It handles a laser well for etching which also makes it a good material for laser cutting, which is how these cuts were made! The sponsor is KiwiCo: Get 50% off your first month with promo code STEVEMOULD at https://kiwico.com/stevemould

how did this video come out 1 minute ago but your comment if from 18 hours?

Mechanical press channel confirmed?

Space bra

I can also see huge potential for this in the space industry, especially for colonization.

@@mickeyfilmer5551 ah, ok, thanks

He made a bra for robots 🤖

*cyborgs

Kinda revealing for a bra

I was just thinking that

I was thinking the same thing

@@shreddedtwopack6625also has no support, so it’s not good for any purpose

For some reason I find that shape with the two domes very pleasing.

i wonder why

You must be a male squirrel.

An interesting structure indeed

neurons: activated

The fact that a painting, 100s of years old, when applied to a material becomes a really neat process of scientific mechanics and geometry, is kind of crazy

aliens

Like?????? How much else is hidden hehe geometry is weird

Math is math I guess

​@@abigailwill375Sacred Geometry - its an area of study in its own right.

@@BLEKSIDE humans, actually. Humans with math.

That reminds me of the plastic "ball" I have. It also has two stable configurations. Similar to the 9 squares, but it expands in 3D and changes colour on flipping.

Always blue always blue always blue

@@RobertPodosek Always blue always blue always blue

Hoberman sphere?

@@madselena3111 No, but I've got that one, too. The changing color ball has two stable configurations. I've got a video showing that. But I don't think I'm supposed to post links here 🙂

The heat map at 7:00 is possibly the best visual demonstration I have ever seen for a level curve on the graph of two variables. I genuinely hope that younger students will see this video before they cover the topic in classes because it would make it so much easier to grasp it. Or at least it would have helped me a lot. Your videos never cease to impress.

Wish I could like this comment multiple times. I was thinking the same thing, that visual representation helped my brain process the rest of the information he was sharing on the screen in that moment.

It seems to me like the best possible example of a level curve for the graph of a function of two arguments would just be... The actual level curves on topographical maps?!? What am I missing?

@@robertofontiglia4148this example might be useful in showing an application that doesn't require a third dimension in space, and can instead be indicated by colour in the 2D graph, which might help some students understand why bother with such graphs in the first place rather than just popping out into 3D. Sorry I don't think I'm quite describing this well. Anyhow, different students find different examples relevant in different amounts; for you, the best example might be a topo graph, while for this commenter the heat maps shown here felt even more illuminating. sometimes things get described (and understood) more absolutely than relatively, perhaps because that's easier to convey, even though it's sometimes only an approximation of what is meant. dunno.

Steve, I love your channel so much, because every video invariably achieves at least two things: 1) it shows me something I've never even thought about before (whether because it's something I never knew existed, OR it's something I HAVE seen but never really given it much of a second thought), and 2) it's ALWAYS absolutely fascinating and keeps me gripped the entire time. I love it. Thank you for doing what you do!

"Bi-stable auxetic structure" is not as cool as "space bra"

100% that is literally what i comment too

*bi-stable. The subtitles are wrong.

@@DW-indeed I'll be honest, that was my typo rather than the subtitles... I didn't have them on 😂

I'd actually be curious if there's a practicality to a "space bra", like being able to print to your exact size and shape.

I'm a Mechanical Engineering PhD student researching auxetic sheets (specifically how to embed actuation and sensors while manufacturing them to create smart robotic skins), great video on the topic! It's awesome to see more public attention given to the work done by Mina (6:27) and Tian (3:55), they're doing lots of cool work in computational graphics and design optimization on the subject!

Not asking you to dox yourself, but are there papers you'd recommend as a start?^^ Sounds very interesting

@@EliasMheart I second this, I'd love to learn more about it

I'm a Mechanical Engineering student, and Tian was one of my Professors! Small world! It's awesome to see cool research done. I go to the University of Houston, he teaches Computational Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics.

Would be interesting to see these structures made of Nitinol which has some similar applications

I wonder if you could make an auxetic structure out of shape memory alloy. Then it would expand and contract automatically when heat is applied. Might make for some handy window shades.

That would be a great retrofit for all those stupidly-designed houses with windows facing west!

This could be an amazing product.

Sure if you want to pay $20,000 for your window shades

Work is currently being done on this in some universities! Super cool stuff.

this feels futuristic, im glad the world is getting more advanced like this

1:22 Haha you had my eyes bawling at the shout out the hydraulic press, absolutely genius Steve!

I was amazed it took me this much scrolling to find the first comment to mention Lauri or the Hydraulic Press Channel

As soon as I heard the music I laughed, before I even realised why. Brains are weird. This was awesome and clever.

I'm rather unhappy that HPC doesn't have the music anymore.

@@jaredkennedy6576 I apparently haven't seen a video of theirs in a while. They haven't had the intro for almost 2 years now (last one I found was Jan 2022 on the Cheetos into Donut video and then Sept 2021 before that) ... that's sad. The music was so iconic that I heard like 4 notes and immediately knew it was a HPC reference. And now with the last two "normal" videos I kinda wonder if Steve's been putting these things in for ages and I just finally got two of them. (The Technology Connections one being the previous one)

😭

I’d be really interested to learn more about the activation wave of those shapes and how they could be activated in zero gravity

You could shake it?

Genuinely one of the best channels on YouTube. All of the science, all of the cool, and none of the pretentiousness.

The amount of references to other creators, and the seamlessness of them all is truly astounding

I feel like these would be great for quickly building structures for habitats on the moon and mars. They could be easily packaged for space flight and quickly erected to serve as the support structure that a strong airtight fabric could be draped over and fastened to.

while the core concept itself was already fascinating to learn about, when the animation showing the consequence of changing T and theta came out, i was floored "HOW DID THEY CODE THAT!"

You mean the one at 5:30? As an artist, you could animate the line shrinking/moving with two keyframes and be done in 5 minutes 😅

​@@chelsealindsay4821what if it's a simulation? How would they do that?

@@jwalster9412 Zero clue, I am not very knowledgeable about math-graphics

I never considered myself particularly brilliant, but I appreciate how you were able to explain all of this. It was perfectly understandable and kept my attention throughout. Super fascinating topic as well. 10/10 im glad to be a new subscriber

My first thought for this is that it would make a great concept for a tent. The "walls" of the tent would also be part of the supporting structure. Once it's expanded you could insert a Lock Block so it would be harder for it to collapse back down.

Fully functional tent at just the pull of a rope

With lots of holes 😉

@@landsgevaer just make the triangles tiny with stretchable mesh underneath

@@rennoc6478 already exist: https://youtu.be/ftFefk5ai2A sorry for the video being french, dunno any other manufacturer that does it.

@@TidusleFlemard I have on eof those, they arent bad but they have one flaw; putting htem back into the packaged state. The way they work is by using flexible carbon fiber tubes wich are twisted in such a way that they act as a spring. When you remove them from the bag they are compressed in the spring into a tent shape. The problem is when you want to pack up you now have to exert force in sepcific and often complicated ways to get it back into a compressed state, wich is usually a hassle. A tent with the videos mechanism would have the advantage of being able to gets "undeployed" with minimal work required.

I think this would be a great way to make tent frames, maybe just drape a cloth over the lattice, and you have a shelter. This is super cool, and I’d like to learn more

I studied Auxetics as a side project in college because it was mentioned in a FOOTNOTE in one of my textbooks. Understanding a negative Poisson’s ratio is so neat. I’ve seen auxetics used in ballistic doors as well!! Go check them out, as well as understanding the ratio of strain and shear and compressibility if you’re curious like I was.

Such a fascinating video as did not know there is a whole field of such shape shifting structures. Seeing the demo of auxetic structures got me thinking of the possibility of using shape-memory alloy wires (memory metal) embedded in the structure to electrically switch from one physical state to another.

It always warms my heart to see humanity just co-existing. When you showed a compliant mechanism you said I'll link Derek's video. All working together to make knowledge more accessible. Love it.

Yet Mark Rober didn't link Derek's video

@@waldolemmer yeah I noticed that. I'm guessing it's because it was a very important part of the video and as he mentioned, he had the biggest expert in the field with him.

I was sent some packing paper like this and it entertained me for hours. I still think about it. It can lay flat, be folded up, but you could also wrap it perfectly around a ball. It could be used like regular paper, or it could be turned into structural padding. It could conform to any shape. Yet also to back to being a flat piece of paper. The uses for it are boundless and go well beyond just protecting items in packaging.

Can you imagine clothes from these materials? Completely flat in one state, perfectly fitting in another? Seems amazing to me

Don't forget see-through.

@@azrobbins01 seems cool for the summer :)

@@azrobbins01 quiet part out loud! Shhh😂

​@@azrobbins01you can probably put some fabric between joints to make it opaque. Then it would work perfectly

Yes! This one thing looked like a bra. How cool would it be if the bra were flat while washing and storing but in the perfect shape while wearing?!

This is insane, thank you for making this video. Are there any tools or resources for 3D printers to create these?

This is really cool! I wonder if it would be possible to get tri-stable or higher degree-stable material structures, where there are further minima in the graph of the energy needed to stretch it

I can't wait for this to be applied molecularly or energetically. specifically with chips, can you imagine chips able to change their composition upon a slight bit of electric charge? Which could then change other factors like resistance?

That Hydraulic Press Channel joke straight up killed me, I love how you're the master of friendly parody of other YouTube channels at this point

One of the only ways I could think of making that whiteboard square somewhat able to work when rotated is to put a + in all the sides instead of a curve, connect with X's on the corners, if it isnt an image mirrored on those axis I don't see it working, unless you tried coming up with some cool type of 'encrypyted' image that only shows after you turn it. Cool video!

Protein based bistable structures reminded me of an old idea: crunchy gum. Not really a reason to develop the tech in its own right, but it's an accessible tech demo, and probably a great stim

I want to try crunchy gum! That sounds incredible!

I'm almost convinced that's a thing. Cause iirc there's a stimulating gum I heard of before.

i want this

Give us the crunchy gum

What's crunchy gum?

Keep doing what you do! You deserve a medal for all the interesting videos that you produce!

This is like an unexpected mix of engineering and a psychedelic experience

I did not expect to leave this video with this much new knowledge, very well explained!

Love this. I did some work with jlr years ago looking at similar structures to apply in car seats predominantly to reduce weight in electric cars. It didn’t go further than a demo because we hadn’t figured the variation in density with weight distribution. Totally doable still!

This could be a useful tool for making domed shelters. A few support poles, or even one, to reinforce the stability and a covering to create and inside and outside, and you've got a building. Given the small amount of materials, it would be useful when space is limited, such as perhaps making rudimentary moon or mars bases. Im imagining the flat state and the covering wrapped around an expanding central pole.

That is an interesting structure. I'm very interested in the structure of that thing.

💀

the point of making it that shape is possibly to gain popularity...

Very intriguing structure indeed!

You might say that it is so interesting, that it may apply transformative forces on secondary structures as well!

I want to try this in both ways: a small object you can put in something then open out to apply an outward pressure, and a large tube you can fit something around that then collapses and provides an inward pressure. For both, you could design a custom amount of pressure for each unit

Some people at my old place of work made a material that was bistable at the molecular level. It wasn't auxetic, but it did exhibit negative thermal expansion (it got smaller when heated), which was pretty cool. Switching between stable states was chemically, rather than mechanically driven -they added water for one state and organic solvent for the other. We published the water containing structure in nature chemistry. Good times 😁

when when you make negative nitinol 😬😬

Incredible video. Brilliantly explained, loved learning about it.

This could have some real applications in anything where you need to ship flat and deploy as a structure (or vice versa). Everything from flatpack furniture to space satalites/probes. Also padding and insulation for textiles - as shown by the suggestive shape in the demo :P

That graph you show at 7:38 is pretty much like the graph of an endothermic reaction. This material could easily explain that concept to students in a fun and tactile way. Also, what you were saying about bistable, auxetic molecules, if you look into how hemoglobin works it’s kind of like that. My professor in Biochem explained it with two foam dice, before Oxygen attaches the dice are shrunk next to each other (form 1), then when Oxygen attaches they expand, but they’re limited to that cube shape and touch side by side (form 2). Hemoglobin gets more complicated than that, but that’s an example in nature that comes to what you were suggesting.

For your whiteboard cube contraption: Attach any random tiles from the board game "tsuro" and both states will be legitimate placements. You could also drive yourself fully insane trying to find the specific "Carcassonne" tiles that would work

Not that hard. The only real requirement that the cubes have is that when you open it up, opposite sides of any void are identical, while the other two sides are a mirror image of that. So with the Carcassonne tiles, just surround any single void with a single color, and you're set. I suspect he is only having difficulty because he wants the edges to be clean, which requires three sides of any of the corner pieces to be clean.

you could make an algorithm to check that game that i never heard of and will not even attempt to spell

​@rianfelis3156 anyone who plays with rubiks cubes will figure out how it works.... and THEN try and solve it

Similar to the Tsuro idea, you could make a very fun toy with roads on it which rearrange themselves as you push and pull it.

I just recently defended my PhD thesis in which I developed multistable, adaptive structures from a zero-poisson-ratio cellular material for aerospace applications. Great explanation of the topic!

I wonder if something like this could be used as a redeploy-able airbag. Maybe not for something as important as a person, but some kind of bumper system.

Compliant and Self-assembling shapes are so cool!

So thorough explanation of something so complex. Love your videos!

Bro, I know nothing about this, yet you explain in a way that I understand almost all of it. Incredible!

Can’t believe how often this happens, but you and mark were able to work on very similar projects at the exact same time!

Have you looked at the Dennis the menace UK and USA version and its conception?

Mark who?

I'm convinced they do it on purpose, and just refuse to acknowledge it

@@BloodAspRober

@@TerraCotton Ahh, the mini nerf? I haven't watched it yet.

The concept works in a number of scenarios, from medical to space industry, where space is at a premium (solar panels, telescope mirrors, moon buggy, etc) I once had a heat proof mat that used a similar concept. Worked as either a coaster or placemat, however, it disappeared when I moved.

Dear Steve, thanks for the wonderful presentation! A quesion: are auxetic materials which also go through plastic deformation of any interest?

For the square movement design, would placing a small circle with the middle on the middle blocks four corners possibly make a design that could be repeated?

Great video! I wonder if non-orthogonal cuts would be any use for shaping the 3D object.

On a less scientific use for this tech, I would love this to be programmed to replicate the 3D model of a map designed for tabletop games such as D&D for ease of sharing and storage. It seemed like it could be strong enough to support most minis, or platforms could carry some weight underneath for larger minis (or possibly stilted stands that could go through rather than underneath). I would be interested to see the possible range of shapes this can produce.

what an aesthetically pleasing shape

mhmmm mate sure "aesthetically pleasing"

Lmfao

Very aesthetic and very pleasing

are there any tristable patterns? i don't know if i have just broken the fourth dimension or some sh*t but i find this really pleasing and satisfying to watch and would be really interested if this even works theoretically. love your videos :) please keep on being this good at what you're doing❤

Any of these patterns that buckle into 3D shapes are actually tristable because they can buckle up or down. In general you can create structures that have many stable states. But if you only have a single degree of freedom that can be manipulated (expansion) then you're somewhat limited in how many states that you can get.

Well, if you have a theoretical material like in the video, except where one state produces a dome shape... then yes. You would have unexpanded, dome-shape expanded, and bowl-shape expanded (push dome down and lift its edges to invert it). BUT WAIT, WASN'T THAT EXACTLY THE SHAPE SHOWN? SO OP LIED WHEN HE CALLED THEM BISTABLE IN THE VIDEO?!?

@@samavis4869 this actually makes a lot of sense, but as @feha92 said, this would then mean this isn't actually a bistable pattern

​@@thelee3781it's tristable technically. But the flat ones are bistable.

I've seen the professor who works on the paper at 8:57 give an awesome lecture before. Really cool stuff :)

Huh... reminds me of the expanding spiky ball toy at my Grandma's house as a kid, until we broke it anyway, lol. That was the first thing that popped to my mind when you explained the concept of an auxetic bistable object. These would be awesome fidget toys honestly.

I've never seen any creator so genuinely happy with the product that the video sponsor is selling. My eldest loves stem toys so will definitely use Steve's discount and at least try it for a few months.

An idea I had for this is if the material itself expanded with heat the material structure could be forced to expand automatically as well.

Wow, I imagine we'll see aerospace applications based on this in the near-ish future, combined with the relatively recent origami-like packing & folding/unfolding techniques employed by JWST and others. Seems like an excellent means to unfold antennas, mirror arrays, or whatever sort of scaffolding into much larger surface structures with more complex geometry, and fewer moving parts/points of failure.

This whole thing is made up of tiny little moving parts, all the tiny hinges are going to tear like tissue paper in a high stress environment

​@@davidy22Well, yes, but couldn't the general concept could be adapted to work for different materials and environments? The hinges could be strengthened by choosing the right material, geometry, and scale. Just spitballin', but I could see cutting the tile geometry into a thin, flat sheet of a memory alloy like NiTi, unrolling and applying a heating/cooling cycle to transform it. Granted, it would only be useful in a pretty narrow range of applications, but still...

@@musicbyerland Any material you can make this with is going to be stronger as solid sheets instead of as a lattice of little metal fatiguing joints. This is going in things that aren't going to be taking heavy loads, aerospace can't use this

@@davidy22 true, but I wasn't thinking in terms of structures that repeatedly move or support heavy loads. I probably shouldn't have referenced mirror arrays or heavy structural elements. More like a means of deploying a solar sail with special surface geometry, an inflatable habitat, or maybe a lightweight radio dish or something.

Thank you for your deep-dive into stable & auxetic materials. It's allowed me to respond to my mother's email in a very accessible way.

I can verify, from my personal experience, that a lightswitch definitely is a tri-stable mechanism :)

Would love to see AI learn and implement these mechanisms

This was such an interesting video and as an artist I absolutely wanna try making an image for that square contraption XD tiling patterns will probably work but a single non-repeating image would be cooler

I think you could also use this to make a dome out of a single flat sheet of metal. Like, drones on the moon or mars use local materials to build the sheet, then laser cut it into a pattern that will result in a dome. The drones pull it apart, raising the dome. Then they could like spray concrete or foam onto it to seal it up and give it strength. Possible to use this to build habs?

You should try making a version that's flat when extended and becomes curved when squished rather than the other way around. I'd love to see how that works out.

They made that! But I didn't get to film it.

A piece of paper is flat when extended but curved when crushed

@@SteveMould Hi Steve, loved this video. Just out of curiosity, do these shapes break easily due to the amount of stress applied to the points of rotation with every use?

​@@plopilpyI assume if you notice your strain energy being too much and causing failure you can make the energy valley less deep by choosing a different t and theta value. This would make the stretched conformation less stable but won't put as much stress on the components. They probably do lots of model simulations to optimize a stable but durable material.

@@orena932 Yeah, sounds about right

2:15 there are some simple images that would work for maintaining the image after the cycle. If each square has an image that is vertically and horizontally symmetric then it would maintain the same image. Something like a circle or a square or a plus sign would work.

For the twisting cubes, one thought I had was, what if instead you built 9 polarizing filters in this configuration, and used that on the end of the sugar tube that twists light It isn't really an "image", but you have a 3x3 pixel grid that can change colors of light Which itself can be used on another image/filter that shows one image with one color, and another image with the other color, and that's one way to get a changing image with this, but not really anything to do with how the images line up, it's the light that's lining up

This concept feels like it could be incredibly useful for radio astronomy in space / on the far side of the moon... 1 or many flat sheets, which under tension expand (or via extension) - optimising for the range of wavelengths one wishes to investigate.

This is such a fascinating concept. From a light switch to a very complex shape, but still the same concept. Very enjoyfull and satisfying.

This has such amazing growth in the future, even going into structural buildings and car possibilities

2:16 the image has to have a 4-fold rotational symmetry in each square what you can draw is just an independent circle in each of the squares i think how it would always work, is that you split every square into 4 triangles by using their diagonals, and ensuring every triangle has the same image. i think it is only possible with a single stroke if you draw circles as large as the squares themselves, so they touch each square edge of their squares, and that way you can cross from one square to another via those touching points

instead of circles you can use rhombuses and even make them concave (which would look like circles that cross the boundaries)

Just put a cross in each square

@@natecurtis3159 crosses also work, they are kinda like inverted rhombi or they are like shifted rhombi just so we are on the same page, the image most likely has to be drawn without releasing the marker and without overdraw (do not draw over an existing line, probably except for touching points)

Something like this, combined with origami could be great for prefab “first structures” for interplanetary and/or emergency situations

I love the inventions that the professor from BYU developed. The objects made in functioning ways out of a single piece. It take away the connection points, bolts, springs, etc. It's facinating.

Cool. I'd like to see self changing parts using nitnol memory metal. :)

Always enjoy seeing cutting edge mechanical materials!

I've been seeing Compliant Mechanisms and Auxetic Structures popping up in Social media and actual real world products more and more in the last year. I like the developments being made but my only issue is that they are all made of plastic where the "hinges" between each piece is always under compression and tension when spread apart and pushed back together so it's only a matter of time before the hinges break. We need to invest more into the material they are being made from before we make them otherwise they are basically useless

My first thought was for mars bunkers. Since space is a limited resource on a rocket these expandable sheets would be a great way to be able to bring a structure to space. Probably exists easier ways to get a bunker to space but this one was interesting

Combine this with the insane stuff they are already doing with origami and there could be some serious potential. Heck, in its current form it has potential for transforming into a large, well shaped, rigid, space antenna which would have thousands of applications.

Martian chicks with space bras go brrrr

My first thought was for a bra that actually fits!

While I think a stent is a good idea, I think that this is thinking too small. How about using this for flat packing habitats? This could be used for making the structural base of a habitat that you can then throw a covering material over after you have expanded the base structural material. This would make good option for flat packing quick habitats for disaster areas or even future lunar missions.

You might be interested to know that your wooden blocks model is related to the same kind of vibration that happens in many perovskite and ReO3-type cubic compounds that facilitates negative thermal expansion. If only you'd put this video out 3-4 years ago. It would've inspired me to make a physical model for my thesis, haha

Definitely could be used as scaffolding for buildings on the moon. 😍

The biggest mind blow of this video is that cork doesn't expand outwards when pushing on it. That's literally been something I've worried about in the back of my mind when pushing in cork for my entire life.

This seems like it might be useful for deploying structures in space. Launch with a palette of flat panels and deploy them into the desired shape of structure. Could be a useful way to put domes onto other planets or the moon..

It’d be interesting if there was a way to make a similar structure that’d fill in the negative space, so you’d have 2 flat sheets, and then when expanded it’d be one solid sheet, but I doubt the math would work out that way :/

That would also require the pivot points to intersect each other, otherwise, making the "hinge points" half depth, like wood joinery, would make them too weak and likely to break upon expanding. If you didn't need or mind the intersecting points to be thicker than the rest of the sheet, it might be doable though...

Hm! Is the hinged structure that forms the negative space also going to be bistable and auxetic, or would it be floppy? Presumably TheUndeadGraduate's objection could be satisfied equivalently by having each polyon include a second layer with the same shape slightly inset to fit the holes on the positive structure.

@@TheUndeadGraduate yeah tbh I assumed half depth joints were implied because otherwise they physically wouldn’t be flush and kinda ruin the whole point, but it’s a good clarification I do think it’d be more fragile and more material dependent but I’m more interested on the math for a negative shape that matches the same curve. I think realistically the negative layer would just be more flexible and have more “holes” in the second flat sheet, so it wouldn’t hold its form as well on its own.

I wonder if you can use this concepts to apply to display screens .. perhaps have the structures at the nano level or something. and have the screen stretch uniformly in both directions. imagine turning your iphone into an ipad and back :)

It's fun to imagine the possible uses of this. I'm currently on hour three of pondering some sort of foldable solar tarp for camping. Packs flat when you're not using it, and if it was dome-shaped you wouldn't have to rotate it on axis with the sun. You'd need to have some form of foil-based solar cell though, and honestly that's probably 90% of the invention.

Any chance these can be 3d printed? I would love to make materials like this in TPU and PLA. Thanks!

This reminds me so much of M. C. Escher's metamorphosis art - his patterns might be used for some of your new designs :-D

great job explaining that, love your videos

When I watched you speak about KiwiCo I cried. My parents were not there for me growing up and so everything I know is a true accumulation of gems like you in the community spreading the word about true knowledge and gatekeeping nothing. Everything you post is genius and makes my brain itch in all the right ways I cant thank you enough for keeping me optimistic and thinking. Thank you cool internet uncle Steve Mould, truly captivating.

I feel you. When Steve said "they think like makers, now" it really reached me.That's a whole other level of wholesomeness.

I feel you bro, I experienced the same, just with books, since the internet wasn't really an easily accessible thing when I was a kid. You need to *know* that this is not your fault and you deserve to be seen and respected and cared for and liked and loved, without conditions. You can have that in your life, it's a tough journey, I know, but also an immensely rewarding one. Your parents can't take that away from you.

It's always so interesting to see trends in the STEM world. Mark Rober's video today covers some similar stuff.

at 2:15 , the simplest way to make one is a raster, having a cross on each square. Would be cool to see more complex ideas. maybe even one that gives a certain figure in one oriantation and then a different one in the other direction (that isnt just a jumbled up bunch of lines)

This reminds me of the Triskelion strutures of some of the smallest viruses capsids and clathrin vesicles (in fact if you fold the two half sphere you'd get a full sphere as they do)

Well I've always wondered why I'm able to get a cork back in the bottle despite it seeming impossible (and further explains why the naff foamy ones don't go in nicely)

This has been around in some form or another for about a decade. It’s great but always seems to end with the idea that ‘they could be used for stents’. I think manufacturing them on a bigger scale might be the limitation, but I’m not sure. Ironically for such an innovative design it seems the imagination of what to use it for is somewhat limited. That’s why STEM always needs artistic people to be involved. Personally, I’d like to see it combined with clothing and architecture more; especially in response to temperatures or as an expressive form with sound.

An outer stabilizing mesh for a space suit. You could have a flexible air-tight inner layer that allows you to move around freely, then have that as the outer mesh that has enough flexibility to still allow you to move but enough rigidity to keep the inner layer from expanding out in between the structures. Kind of like those squish ball things inside the small net bag, but the inner material would have to be a bit less elastic.

Wow, this could really improve underwear drawers worldwide! 🎉 If they can manage to create these with sufficient support, we could have flatteneable bras that take up less space in our dresser drawers! 😮 *They better make the bra structure comfortable to wear first, though.

I've seen some similar 3D printed chain mail, I wonder how something like this could work as a structural layer in space suits to keep ballooning to a minimum.

What's the wear and tear resistance on these like? Does the rubber quickly wear out?