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first paper prototype

first paper prototype

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hygroScapeDeploying Large Foldable Structure in the Ocean

Collaborators

Jifei Ou, Chin-Yi Cheng

Summary

My wildest experience...




Building on my research in mechanical metamaterials, Chin-Yi and I developed transformable scaffolds designed for coral restoration, marine habitats, and ecological ocean farms. In 2026, we had the opportunity to deploy one of these large foldable structures—measuring 2m by 2m by 1m—on the Nautilus, a research vessel operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust.


We spent a week aboard the Nautilus, and while the ocean was undeniably beautiful, our attention was fixed on the task at hand. Day and night, we worked tirelessly to assemble the structure, making sure everything was ready for its first test in the waters near Southern California. When the moment finally came, we deployed the scaffold, watching it transform and perform as designed.


The project was streamed live on Nautilus’s online channel, allowing a wider audience to witness deployment. After retrieval, we were thrilled to see the structure had executed the transformation as planned.


Our computationally generated scaffold has  a number of suitable advantages:


1) It is transformable. It can be assembled, transported as a flat piece and transformed into a 3D structure underwater autonomously. This is very important as underwater construction is well-known difficult. An autonomous system can significantly reduce that and human labor.

2) It uses water buoyancy or pressure to actuate the structure transformation. The whole system therefor is passive and easy to deployed.  

3) It is parametric. We can tune the unit sizes, surface areas, geometry, material options in our software platform before the physical construction. It was known that the landscapes will affect the diversity of the corals, which will affect the diversity of fishes being attracted. Parametric design in our system can enable the programmability of the ecological diversity.