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Fluid Assembly: Chair Test from Self-Assembly Lab, MIT
Chair that builds itself? It's like the inventions we see in the movies. But now it's a reality. MIT researchers have created a small white chair that assembles itself solely on the power of water currents and small magnets.

Designed to harness energy from natural forces to construct organized, sturdy structures, the small piece of furniture entitled Fluid Assembly: Chair Test is the most recent development in an ongoing collaboration between MIT's Self Assembly Lab, digital design software group Autodesk, and molecular biologist Arthur Olson. The Chair Test, and two other in-progress projects (Aerial Assemblies and Fluid Crystallization: Cubic) were presented by director Skylar Tibbits at Biofabricate Summit in New York City.

A self-assembling object, Tibbits says, is a group of "individual parts that come together on their own to make precise structures." Tibbits also added and told The Creators Project that one long-term goal of these experiments is to develop a construction process that needs neither machine nor human intervention, burns no fossil fuels, requires no extra energy, can run 24/7, and is optimal situations that pose a lot of problems for existing technologies. Things like disaster relief, construction in space, or assembly of micro- and macro-structures are possible applications for the products the Self-Assembly Lab is planning.

"We are also interested in a future scenario of' 'evolutionary fabrication' whereby materials can self-organize into optimal configurations based on the dynamics of the system," Tibbits explained. Where modern manufacturing processes involve designing a printer, mill, or clutter to make specific objects, evolutionary fabrication costs little in terms of energy inputs, and the natural system would design job-optimized objects itself. Aerial Assemblies is one such example of this proccess: depending on the wind conditions and physical environment, the invention's best shape will take form. Then, "After the helium fades and the modules touch down, the assembled lightweight structural lattices will remain," said Tibbits.

Self-Assembling structures aren't exactly rare, they are present in lots of microscopic structures including viruses and the types of crystals that inspired Fluid Crystallization. On a human scale, however, they're almost unheard of, which is why developing sustainable, practical uses for these materials is still far on the horizon.

Aerial Assemblies from Self-Assembly Lab, MIT
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