Initiated from MIT Media Lab, BioLogic is the attempt to program living organism and invent responsive and transformable interfaces of the future. Nature has engineered its own actuators, as well as the efficient material composition, geometry and structure to utilize its actuators and achieve functional transformation. Based on the natural phenomenon of hygromorphic transformation, they introduce a specific type of living cells as nanoactuators that react to body temperature and humidity change. The living nanoactuator can be controlled by electrical signal and communicate with the virtual world as well. A digital printing system and design simulation software are developed to assist the design of transformation structure.
“We can combine our cells with genetic tools to introduce other functionalities into these living cells,” says Wen Wang, the paper’s lead author and a former research scientist in MIT’s Media Lab and Department of Chemical Engineering.
