
MIT Invents Alterable Pin Surface That Lets Objects Assemble Themselves - metakermit
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3052266/mit-invents-a-flowing-river-of-3-d-pixels-that-lets-objects-assemble-themselves?partner=rss
======
deckard1
It's a bit obvious, right? Or maybe I'm the only person that had a pin box toy
as a kid
([https://www.fatbraintoys.com/toy_companies/toysmith/classic_...](https://www.fatbraintoys.com/toy_companies/toysmith/classic_pin_art.cfm)).

Nine Inch Nails also did this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDsqpeiTqg8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDsqpeiTqg8).
Which, to me, is a bit more impressive even if it is CGI. A 3d pin video
screen would be massively cool. I want to say someone else did a similar music
video in the '80s, but can't remember.

------
vernie
Even academic videos aren't safe from folksy startup music.

~~~
nooneelse
Has there been a Kickstarter campaign to fund an album of folksy music for use
in Kickstarter videos?

------
rebootthesystem
This is neat research. Probably not very practical or useful in it's current
form, yet, you have to engage in highly speculative research and even consider
the ridiculous to discover new ideas.

This version is unlikely to be able to compete in almost any metric with robot
arms or even far simpler purpose-built machines (think simple 1 DOF automation
used in manufacturing assembly lines, like bottling plants). With time
interesting and unique applications of some future version of this might find
a problem it can solve elegantly.

~~~
cma
Yep, you never know, something like this could pay off for nano machinery,
etc. You can't just benchmark against current top of the line robot arms. It
is about exploring approaches, not selling to auto manufacturers within a year
to replace what they are currently using.

------
chucknelson
The video has me thinking this is foreshadowing some new type of warehouse.
Maybe Amazon is going to make a "life size" version of this.

Now if this is efficient in any way - no idea.

~~~
jstin
Here is a company that provides conveyor belt that is in the same vein as this
MIT project
[https://www.festo.com/group/en/cms/10225.htm](https://www.festo.com/group/en/cms/10225.htm)

------
unwind
Very impressive!

Not a word about of each "3d pixel" is implemented, which is a shame. I guess
it doesn't have to be too complicated, but there sure are a lot of them even
in this early prototype/lab version. They're also bi-directional, with each
pixel having position-sensing.

~~~
hugs
I've been working on something similar for several years. (Alas, I don't have
MIT's PR budget.) I call it "PinThing" and implement the pins as DC motor
powered, 3D printable linear actuators. I use limit switches to detect end-of-
travel, and a shaft encoder to measure distance traveled. Current goal is to
make an array of four 3x5 pin blocks to make a digital clock display. One of
these days I really need to finish and formally publish this project! One big
challenge in the project is driving down the cost per pin to make a large
array affordable -- that's why I focus on using 3D printable parts and cheap
motors.

Here's a demo of one pin powered by Arduino and an H-bridge motor driver
circuit: [https://youtu.be/pLzDHLm01wM](https://youtu.be/pLzDHLm01wM)

Three.js software demo: [http://pinthing.com](http://pinthing.com)

~~~
gene-h
well you can buy a chinese knock-off of the actuators the MIT people used from
spark fun:
[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10976](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10976)

~~~
hugs
I'm trying to drive the cost down to $1-2 per pin. It's obvious the MIT team
did not optimize for cost. At $20/pin (from the SparkFun link), a 28-pin
display (the minimum you'd need for a 4 digit, 7-segment display clock would
cost $560. To so anything interesting, you'd want dozens or hundreds of pins.
Cost is a _huge_ reason keeping this idea from being more wide-spread.

~~~
gene-h
Well if you really want to drive down the cost, the best thing to do would be
to mass produce the actuators for the purpose. The actuators MIT used aren't
really intended as actuators, they're some weird part for moving knobs around
on high end audio equipment.

Now as it turns out, there really are linear actuators that cost about $1 per
actuator, they're just tiny: [http://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/Goteck-1-5g-Super-Micr...](http://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/Goteck-1-5g-Super-Micro-Analog_60006747818.html)

------
ilaksh
An early clunky version of programmable matter.

------
too_late
Could something like this be contained in a box, so that each of the sides has
these on it?

That way instead of just working laterally, and from the bottom, things could
be done from multiple angles. For example, solving a rubiks cube via machine
typically involves at least three axes and servos, but with a machine like
this that operated on three axes, I imagine a more power efficient method
could be developed.

This is really cool technology, I love how simple it is in design, yet it
evokes all kinds of ideas in the mind.

------
t2015_08_25
That is one perverse set of constraints.

Give me a few 1980s-vintage robot arms and I will outperform this system in
any category except entertainment value. Robot arms once held great
entertainment value and this system will become old media some day, too.
Semiologically speaking, this system represents a silo of sublime resources
from dopaminergics to labor and cash, but when the zombies come, I'll bet
people will still run to the shed full of AK-47s.

