A 40-year-old patent has finally been brought to life.
That's the Y-zipper.
A 3D-printed three-sided fastener that transitions any object from flexible to rigid and back again.
The robotics application is the one that caught my attention.
A quadruped robot that adjusts its leg stiffness depending on terrain, switching between rigid and flexible in real time without additional motors or complex mechanical systems.
But this goes way beyond robotics. A wrist cast that loosens during the day and stiffens at night. A tent that pops into shape in 90 seconds instead of six minutes.
The idea sat in a patent filing for four decades. It took 3D printing to finally make it real.
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