 One of the biggest challenges in trying to make a garment using a 3D printer is that 3D printers print rigid hard plastic. This project actually started with an idea to create a bracelet that was made out of hinged components that could print flat and then fold into a three-dimensional configuration. And we thought it would be amazing to make something larger scale like a dress. We take something large and three-dimensional and fold and flatten it using simulation to make it small enough to print in one piece. So the entire idea of this hinges on when we take it out of the machine it can unfold into a dress. Part of the idea of this entire project is being able to make complex large-scale things with no assembly required. So we were experimenting with creating hinged textiles which in a way are sort of like chain mail. They have a hardness to them. They're made of a hard material, but they're interlinked in such a way where they can move and you can run in them. You can sit down in them. They're not a hard plastic cage around your body. It's a lot of garments that have been printed in the past that were giant sculptures were printed in tiny idiot little pieces and then hand assembled, which is really doesn't even necessitate being 3D printed. That's how you would make a traditional garment or a sculpture. How can we adapt simulations that biologists are using to understand how form and pattern emerge in nature? And at Nervous System, those are the sort of experiments that we've been doing. And this dress is sort of our latest project of combining engineering and science techniques with design and digital fabrication.