PARTS

CRAFTS

Tunable Hinge

Inspired by Nadia Cheng’s Tunable Stiffness Structures this one-time melting hinge actuator works with a polymorph plastic also known as friendly plastic or Shapelock that is molded around a strand of stainless steel conductive thread that will heat up considerably when shorted across a 5V power supply. The heat causes the polymorph to soften so that it can be bent like a hinge. When the thread and polymorph cool back down, the hinge is stuck in whatever new state it is left in.

Video

Inspiration

Nadia Cheng’s work on Tunable Stiffness Structures >> http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/2010/pmwiki.php?n=Main.TunableStiffnessStructures

Related Work

Capillary Origami. Jean-Babtiste Labrune together with Etienne Cliquet inspired by José Bico have been playing with laser cut paper structures for water actuated origami.