Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/25/beautiful-3d-printed-metamat.html
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Um, Shrinky-Dinks?
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Shrink-wrap tubing, as well, but in both cases the mechanism is pretty different. Also, not reversible.
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I LOVE IT ! ! !
But then I never metamaterial I didn’t like.
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Here’s one that shrinks on heating entirely due to its crystal structure, rather than with struts.
I recently did a thermodynamics course online, and one of the experiments that did not involve a highly photogenic exothermic reaction was heating a stretched rubber band, which contracted.
The explanation given was that the rubber band was already in a state of low entropy, with its polymer molecules stretched out, and heating caused them to assume new, random configurations - most of which were shorter. Despite the fact that the experiment was less visually dramatic than many of the others (I mean, the introductory video to the course showed the goddamn thermite reaction) it felt more educational, because we had to think about what was going on.
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The temperature compensated clock pendulum, where materials that expand when heated are arranged so that the pendulum doesn’t change length, was invented almost three centuries ago.
I guess it’s considered a metamaterial now.
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