Skylar Tibbits: Can we make things that make themselves?

http://www.ted.com MIT researcher Skylar Tibbits works on self-assembly -- the idea that instead of building something (a chair, a skyscraper), we can create materials that build themselves, much the way a strand of DNA zips itself together. It's a big concept at early stages; Tibbits shows us three in-the-lab projects that hint at what a self-assembling future might look like.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• TED
• TEDTalks
• Skylar Tibbits
• Design
• Technology
• self-assembly
• self-building
• DNA
• future
• building
• materials

[JaySmith91]

TED VIDEO INTRO TOO LOUD!!!!!!

[nzcarnage]

Great concept and point about biological effiencies and programming. Wow, so may haters just because you think he's boring, thats pretty indicative of irrational people who will never even try, let alone suceed.

[Thymonico]

Come again?

[sqbsbear]

the most random youtube conversation but, I bet my creations are more useless than yours :D

[SeethingGreen]

Excellent. Bring it on. I can absolutely engineer something nearly useless and unimpressive. What have you created?

[sqbsbear]

as an engineer, I challenge that!

[SeethingGreen]

I appreciate your respect for engineering, but you underestimate my intellect. I certainly could.

[sqbsbear]

no, you can't... how does everyone underestimate the complexity of everything?

[sqbsbear]

It's simple NAND gate logic, you can't make that any simpler than reading a few sentences on wikipedia about nand gates. Seriously. TED talks do try to make innovation accessible for the masses but it requires requires some effort on the users to try and understand exactly what our future holds. Do you really expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter?

[bamboopoem1989]

i think self-assembly is a great idea and an exciting research. i can see it playing an important role in the future. but I have to admit he's not delivering the idea very good to the public

[reda02812]

His idea isn't stupid, it's very innovative and he is thinking outside the box, what do skyscrapers have to be immobile why not make them living organism inside the city ,great talk but I have to agree bad delivery.

[GronTheMighty]

somebody give this guy and his team a load of money so they can show up for a future TED talk with more enthusiasm at their better results, 'cuz they've definately got the right ideas working for them, just seemingly not enough funding and joy with it :s