Co-investigator W Carter
Project Website http://matter.media.mit.edu/tools/details/arachne
Arachné is the mortal weaver who was transformed into a spider by Athena. In refusing to acknowledge that her knowledge came, in part at least, from Athena, she offended the goddess and was challenged by her to a contest between the two weavers. According to Ovid, the goddess was so envious of the magnificent tapestry and the mortal weaver's success, that she turned Arachne into a spider. Able to produce up to eight different silks during their lifetime, each spinneret gland within the spider abdomen produces a thread for a special purpose: sticky silk is produced for trapping prey and fine silk for enshrouding it. It is common for spiders to eat their own web daily to recoup some of the energy used in spinning by way of recycling the silk proteins. In more ways than one, spider spinnerets are the antecedents of multi-material printers. Arachne the imaginary being is modeled after the spider web to provide for a flexible armor. The form of the web, its density and thickness, are informed by the anatomical location of the rib cage: in areas where the corset covers the ribs, the web is filled with stiff cells for shielding bony tissue; in areas where the corset covers the inter-costal muscles, the web is filled with softer, more flexible cells, providing for muscular flexibility to enhance and augment movement within the chest wall. Combined, soft and flexible materials are distributed following continuous web morphology to accommodate for multiple functions such as protection, enhanced movement, flexibility and comfort.