The key to Orville and Wilbur Wright’s historic 1903 flight was wing warping. Today, NASA engineers are developing a similar technique to increase the performance and efficiency of fixed-wing aircraft.

Temperature has been used for many years to accomplish work in appliances with more conventional technologies like bi-metals or wax actuators.

BOULDER, CO—Researchers at the University of Colorado have successfully incorporated “shape memory” polymer fibers into the composite materials used in traditional 3D printing, which results in the production of an object fixed in one shape that can later be changed to take on a new shape.

BOSTON—Researchers from Harvard and MIT have created a printed inchworm robot that can fold and assemble itself.