'Collapsible scissored surfaces' complete trilogy of metamaterial design principles

Over the past decade, Professor L.

Mahadevan's Soft Math Lab at the Harvard John A.

Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has helped establish how the ancient Japanese paper arts of folding or cutting can be used to inversely design structures that transform dramatically in shape and function.

Now, the researchers have created a new class of shape-changing matter, based not on folds or cuts, but linkages—networks of interconnected scissor mechanisms that collapse into lines and deploy into curved surfaces. ...