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Thin surfaces are ubiquitous in nature, from leaves to cell membranes, and in technology, from paper to corrugated containers. Structural thinness imbues them with flexibility, the ability to easily bend under light loads, even as their…

We present a simple, accessible method for autonomously transforming flat plastic sheets into intricate three-dimensional structures using only uniform heating and common tools such as household ovens and scissors. Our approach combines…

The field of rigid origami concerns the folding of stiff, inelastic plates of material along crease lines that act like hinges and form a straight-line planar graph, called the crease pattern of the origami. Crease pattern vertices in the…

Deployable structures inspired by origami have provided lightweight, compact, and reconfigurable solutions for various robotic and architectural applications. However, creating an integrated structural system that can effectively balance…

A magnetic-mechanical oscillating system consists of two identical leaf springs, a non-magnetic base, and some magnets. The leaf springs are fixed at the bottom to the non-magnetic base, while the magnet is attached to the top of the leaf…

The nonlinear mechanical response of soft materials and slender structures is purposefully harnessed to program functions by design in soft robotic actuators, such as sequencing, amplified response, fast energy release, etc. However,…

Springs can provide force at zero net energy cost by recycling negative mechanical work to benefit motor-driven robots or spring-augmented humans. However, humans have limited force and range of motion, and motors have a limited ability to…

Folding mechanisms are zero elastic energy motions essential to the deployment of origami, linkages, reconfigurable metamaterials and robotic structures. In this paper, we determine the fate of folding mechanisms when such structures are…

Recent advances enable the creation of nanoscale building blocks with complex geometries and interaction specificities for self-assembly. This nearly boundless design space necessitates design principles for defining the mutual interactions…

Shape-morphing structures, which are able to change their shapes from one state to another, are important in a wide range of engineering applications. A popular scenario is morphing from an initial two-dimensional (2D) shape that is flat to…

Kirigami patterned materials have found several applications in recent years due to their ability to assume complicated shapes and exhibit emergent physical properties when exposed to external forces. Consisting of an array of cuts in a…

We investigate the mechanical response of thin sheets perforated with a square array of mutually orthogonal cuts, which leaves a network of squares connected by small ligaments. Our combined analytical, experimental and numerical results…

Here we describe an ultra-low-cost origami-based approach for large-scale manufacturing of microscopes, specifically demonstrating brightfield, darkfield, and fluorescence microscopes. Merging principles of optical design with origami…

Structures and/or materials with engineered functionality, capable of achieving targeted mechanical responses reacting to changes in external excitation, have various potential engineering applications, e.g. aerospace, oceanographic…

Origami principles are used to create strong, lightweight structures with complex mechanical response. However, identifying the fundamental physical principles that determine a sheet's behavior remains a challenge. We introduce a new…

We present dynamical effects on conformation in a simple bead-spring model consisting of three beads connected by two stiff springs. The conformation defined by the bending angle between the two springs is determined not only by a given…

Morphing surfaces provide a versatile tool to advance the functionalities of high-performance aircraft, soft robots, biomedical devices, and human-machine interfaces. However, achieving precise shape transformation and mechanical property…

Soft electronics have recently gathered considerable interest thanks to their bio-mechanical compatibility. An important feature of such deformable conductors is their electrical response to strain. While development of stretchable…

While the grasping capability of robotic grippers has shown significant development, the ability to manipulate objects within the hand is still limited. One explanation for this limitation is the lack of controlled contact variation between…

Inspired by the allure of additive fabrication, we pose the problem of origami design from a new perspective: how can we grow a folded surface in three dimensions from a seed so that it is guaranteed to be isometric to the plane? We solve…