Shape-shifting Structures Take The Form of A face, Antenna

Prof. L Mahadevan and researchers with the Harvard Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering have created the most complex shape-shifting structures to date -- lattices composed of multiple materials that grow or shrink in response to changes in temperature. The team printed flat lattices that shape morph into a frequency-shifting antenna or the face of pioneering mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss in response to a change in temperature. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. SEAS News

Image: To showcase the ability of the method to create a complex surface with multiscale curvature, the researchers printed the face of the 19th century mathematician who laid the foundations of differential geometry: Carl Friederich Gauss. Image courtesy of Lori Sanders/ Harvard SEAS