Self-assembling, printed lamp


Harvard engineers created a self-assembling lamp whose components are printed, including some of the electronics.

The thing that comes out of the printer (it's a rather special sort of printer) is a flat multi-layer sandwich of shape-memory polymers (they take care of the actual folding, triggered by heat), thin layers of copper, layers of paper and foam for structure, and double-sided tape to keep it all stuck together.


Obviously, not every single part of this lamp was printed. Discrete components like the LED were manually soldered to the composite before folding, and the lamp was wired into an Arduino to get the capacitive touch sensor to properly control the LED.

"This Printable Lamp Can Fold Itself Up for You" (IEEE Spectrum)