Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new method of 3D printing objects that can sense user interaction.
The novelty here is that the objects are 3D printed from a single piece of material (or metamaterial, more precisely), with electrode sensors integrated into the material structure itself. As such, the printed structures are able to detect various changes in state, including applied forces and rotations.
The team believes its approach could have applications in a whole host of custom input devices such as joysticks, switches, and handheld controllers. Taking it a step further, the sensing metamaterial can even be incorporated into more complex intelligent environments such as a couch capable of detecting the user’s body, which might collect data for posture correction analysis later on. Certain actions might even be mapped to functions like turning on a light or the TV.
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