Patent attributes
The Self-Assembly System is composed of a series of units that take an external force that activates an individual state in each unit and sequentially folds/rotates/expands to form a rigid 3-dimensional structure. The system self-assembles from a flexible linear chain or 2-dimensional grid pattern into a rigid 3-dimensional structure, simply by adding an external energy source. The mechanism and placement of each unit provides the sequence of fold angles that is activated by external energy. When the system is assembled, unit-by-unit, or pre-manufactured as a single linked strand, the user is actually “programming” the folding sequence, much like our body's protein strands, that take external energy and fold in a 3-dimensional structure. This demonstrates that structures can be built from 1-dimensional or 2-dimensional flexible geometry and self-assemble into 3-dimensional rigid geometry without manual assembly or construction, simply through an external means of energy.
