Principal Investigator Skylar Tibbits
Project Website http://selfassemblylab.mit.edu/cell-phones
The Cell Phone Self-Assembly project explores a new manufacturing process for consumer electronics through bottom-up construction. The assembly of consumer electronics today still requires a tremendous amount of manual labor or highly precise robotics. This leads to increased cost, assembly time and energy consumption, driving companies to search for cheaper and cheaper off-shore labor. This project proposes and alternative whereby cell phone components can come together on their own through random tumbling, precisely designed geometry as well as lock and key connections. In the future, self-assembly could offer 24/7 production of consumer electronics without robotic or human intervention.