Making materials lightweight while attaining a desirable combination of mechanical, thermal,
and other physical properties is the “holy grail” of material science. Lattice materials …

A key challenge in robotics is to create efficient methods for grasping objects with diverse
shapes, sizes, poses, and properties. Grasping with hand-like end effectors often requires …

Research into programmable materials has attracted extraordinary interest since the
nineties, when the term “programmable” was introduced for the first time. In its widest …

The properties of conventional materials result from the arrangement of and the interaction
between atoms at the nanoscale. Metamaterials have shifted this paradigm by offering …

Track-walking molecular motors are the core bottom-up mechanism for nanometre-resolved
translational movements–a fundamental technological capability at the root of numerous …

Transition waves that sequentially switch bistable elements from one stable configuration to
another have received significant interest in recent years not only because of their rich …

In this paper, a nonlinear elastic system is presented to increase the elastic potential energy
for storage and release. The system consists of four linear mechanical springs arranged in a …

Buckling-driven shape-shifting is increasingly being used in metamaterials to achieve
mechanical programmability and novel functionality. Here, we show that the post-buckling …

Abstract Design, development, productization, and applications of advanced product
concepts are pressing for higher multifunctionality, resilience, and maximization of available …

We consider a flexible mechanical metamaterial comprising an elastomeric matrix with an
embedded square array of circular holes. First, we use the deflated continuation technique …