Essentially, what is special is that we have
a structure, configuration,
that essentially is very flexible in one deformation mode, extremely flexible.
In the other modes, it's very stiff.
So, we have a paradoxical kind of structure
that is flexible and stiff at the same time.
We can tailor that flexibility and the stiffness
to do special movements, special configurations
that allow us to have
reconfiguration capability and adaptability
of the structure at the same time.
We start with the basic miura strip.
Then we make two strips.
And then we put them together.
We glue them.
And then they will form a tube.
And what is beautiful about this is that we
can combine tubes with different angles.
Then we do the same thing,
either with the same dihedral angle as the
previous one that I described or a different one.
And then we are going to couple them in this
zipper configuration.
And then we keep doing that.
And the creativity in the number of extractions
and solutions that you can come up with is endless.
It will be up to you on how you are going
to assemble this basic configuration.
It's a basic unit cell, the two tubes.
But how you combine them, that's up to you.
Then if you combine them in a certain way,
you can do a bridge.
In a different way, you do a building.
In a different way, you do a robotic arm.
And so on and so forth.
What we did, I think, is just the beginning.
And we hope that other people can explore
applications of
these tubes in ways that we did not anticipate.
