• Login
  • Register

Work for a Member organization and need a Member Portal account? Register here with your official email address.

Project Research

FerroZuit

Speculating on life in Zero G, with magnetic cloths that dock us to give us a sense of gravity.
Post Research

FerroZuit among Best Design Exhibitions | UbiComp / ISWC 2025

This project won the Best Design Exhibition award in the functional category, as part of the conference's Design Exhibition
Research
Future Sketches

Exploring the essence of code as a creative medium
Research
Biomechatronics

Enhancing human physical capability
Article Research

Handweaving shows potential in robotic textiles

Liquid crystal elastomer fibers incorporated into different weave designs create programmable and reversible structures.
Research
Fluid Interfaces

Designing Systems for Cognitive Augmentation
Project Research

PixBric: Precision Morphological Control of Pre-Stretched Fabrics Through Tessellated Primitive Geometries

This study introduces PixBric, a pixel-based textile methodology composed of primitive geometries designed to induce controlled morphing be…
Research
Space Exploration Initiative

Designing, prototyping, and building the artifacts of our sci-fi space future
Research
Responsive Environments

Augmenting and mediating human experience, interaction, and perception with sensor networks
Research
Nano-Cybernetic Biotrek

Inventing disruptive technologies for nanoelectronic devices and creating new paradigms for life-machine symbiosis
Project Research

BioLIG

Accepted at UIST25With rising climate change and e-waste, BioLIG introduces a technique to functionalize bio-based materials through laser-…
Research
Sculpting Evolution

Cultivating wisdom through evolutionary and ecological engineering
Research
Conformable Decoders

Converting the patterns of nature and the human body into beneficial signals and energy
Research
Camera Culture

Making the invisible visible–inside our bodies, around us, and beyond–for health, work, and connection
Research
Tangible Media

Invent new tangible and embodied interactions that inspire and engage people
Archived
Project Research

Cluster: Smart Materials

The ability to blend diverse electronic devices in close proximity and novel form-factors promises to usher in a new generation of smart sk…
Archived
Project Research

E - LIG

​We introduce E-LIG, a laser-enabled, additive fabrication method for flexible, double-sided printed circuit boards (PCBs) with integrated …
Article Research

Weaving memory into textiles

For the MIT Visiting Artist Chloé Bensahel, who has collaborated with the Media Lab's Future Sketches group, fabric itself tells the story.
Research
Media Lab Research Theme: Life with AI

Life with AI | Designing the future of smart systems to improve the human experience
Research
Media Lab Research Theme: Future Worlds

Future Worlds | Design and action for the future we want to live in
Research
Media Lab Research Theme: Cultivating Creativity

Cultivating Creativity | Catalyzing a global movement enabling everyone to unlock and unleash their individual and collective creativity
Research
Media Lab Research Theme: Connected Mind + Body

Connected Mind + Body | Revolutionizing the future of mental and physical wellbeing
Archived
Project Research

Tapis Magique: A Choreomusical Interactive Carpet

Ancient textiles have played a major role in the social, economic, and religious structures of communities around the world. Iconic, indige…
Archived
Post Research

TIME's Best Inventions of 2024: Media Lab honorees

The companies were selected in the following categories: Consumer Electronics, Manufacturing + Materials, Agriculture, and Medical Care.
Project Research

2D Spintronic and Neuromorphic Devices for Sustainable Artificial Intelligence

2D Spintronic and Neuromorphic Devices for Sustainable Artificial Intelligence
Project Research

Living Knitwork Pavilion

One of the highlighted projects merging technology with the beauty and craftsmanship of fine arts, the Living Knitwork Pavilion recently re…
Article Research

Smart textiles with Irmandy Wicaksono

Media Lab PhD student Irmandy Wicaksono talks to Infra Magazine about his work, which blends electronics and textiles.
Article Research

This 3D printer can figure out how to print with an unknown material

This research could make it easier to print with renewable or recyclable materials.
Post Research

Fast Company's 2024 Innovation by Design Awards: FibeRobo

Congratulations to the FibeRobo project for receiving four honorable mentions!
Project Research

DefeXtiles: 3D printing quasi-woven textiles via underextrusion

OverviewDefeXtiles are thin, flexible textiles of many materials that can quickly be printed into a variety of 3D forms using an inexpensiv…
Project Research

FibeRobo: Fabricating 4D Fiber Interfaces by Continuous Drawing of Temperature Tunable Fibers

FibeRobo is a novel body-temperature shape-changing fiber based on liquid crystal elastomers. The development of a new fabrication techniqu…
Post Research

FibeRobo recognized at the International Design Awards (IDA) 2023

The FibeRobo project won gold in the Textile & Materials / New Technology Fabrics category.
Article Research

Researchers harness 2D magnetic materials for energy-efficient computing

The researchers precisely controlled an ultrathin magnet at room temperature, which could enable faster processors and computer memories.
Project Research

Material Functionalization

When materials sciences meet HCI and e-textiles, for custom sensors and actuatorsIn this project we explore the process of polymerization t…
Article Research

This liquid crystal fabric is ‘smart’ enough to adapt to the weather

Developed by a multidisciplinary team led by Media Lab student Jack Forman, FibeRobo is a low-cost, programmable, shape-shifting fiber.
Archived
Research
Mediated Matter

Designing for, with, and by nature
Archived
Project Research

Aguahoja

Programmable Water-Based Biocomposites for Digital Design and Fabrication across ScalesAguahoja is an exploration of nature’s design space.…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Aguahoja II

Aguahoja II builds upon the platform technology of its predecessor, enabling large-scale multi-material 3D printing with abundant, organic …
Archived
Project Research

OmniFiber: Strain-tunable Fluidic Fiber Actuators for Soft Robotic Textiles and Autonomous Garments

OmniFiber is a reconfigurable fiber technology for movement-based interactions based on thin fluidic fiber actuators with closed-loop strai…
Project Research

A tailored, electronic textile conformable suit for large-scale spatiotemporal physiological sensing in vivo

The rapid advancement of electronic devices and fabrication technologies has further promoted the field of wearables and smart textiles. Ho…
Archived
Project Research

Aguahoja III

Aguahoja III expands the capabilities of a broad library of sustainable, organic 3D materials with generative patterns that countervail str…
Archived
Project Research

3DKnITS: Three-dimensional Knitted Intelligent Textile Sensor

Three-dimensional Digital Knitting of Intelligent Textile Sensor for Activity Recognition and Biomechanical MonitoringWe present an ap…
Archived
Project Research

Space Fabrics: resilient electronic textiles for distributed sensing in low Earth orbit

Overview: The outermost skin of a space-based structure is designed using materials known to protect against the harsh elements of space. S…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Space Webs as Infrastructure for distributed sensor networks and other infrastructure on low gravity bodies

We study textiles and nets as a base form for growing infrastructure and allowing reconfigurable sensing on low gravity bodies (for instanc…
Archived
Article Research

Labbers Shriya Srinivasan and Irmandy Wicaksono featured in docuseries The Road to 2050

The Road to 2050, a six-part docuseries from The Franklin Institute, examines the ways that today's technology will shape the future.
Article Research

Learning Beautiful brings MIT’s “mind and hand” ethos to early childhood education

Spinoff Learning Beautiful develops education materials that encourage kids to explore computer science concepts through physical learning.
Article Research

What the well-dressed spacecraft will be wearing

Spacecraft wrapped in sensor-rich electronic textiles could double as scientific instruments
Archived
Research
Object-Based Media

Changing storytelling, communication, and everyday life through sensing, understanding, and new interface technologies
Article Research

Smart textiles sense how their users are moving

Researchers develop a comfortable, form-fitting fabric that recognizes its wearer’s activities, like walking, running, and jumping.
Article Research

Helping dairy farmers raise healthy cows

Labby has developed an optical milk scanner based on materials-sensing technology that dairy farmers can use to measure their cows' health.
Project Research

KnittedKeyboard II

Spanning from the early Musical Telegraph and Electronic Sackbut, to the late EMS Synthi AKS and Moog Synthesizers, electronic music and mu…
Article Research

The Three Questions: In Conversation with Neri Oxman

Neri Oxman talks about the Nature x Humanity exhibit at SFMOMA, which features current and past research from the Mediated Matter group
Archived
Project Research

Breathing Garment: A respiratory regulation garment for voice pedagogy

Using OmniFiber technology, we fabricated a type of undergarment that singers can wear to monitor and play back the movement of respiratory…
Archived
Article Research

A fabric that “hears” your heart's sounds

Inspired by the human ear, a new acoustic fabric converts audible sounds into electrical signals.
Archived
Project Research

Glass II

Optically transparent and structurally sound, glass has played a significant role in the evolution of product and architectural design acro…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Glass I

Ancient yet modern, enclosing yet invisible, glass was first created in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt 4,500 years ago. Precise recipes for…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Wanderers

The Wanderers were unveiled as part of the exhibition: ‘The Sixth Element: Exploring the Natural Beauty of 3D Printing' on display a…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Vespers III

Vespers is a collection of masks exploring what it means to design (with) life. From the relic of the death mask to a contemporary living d…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Totems

Biodiversity on planet Earth is under momentous threat, with extinction rates estimated between 100 and 1,000 times their pre-human level. …
Archived
Article Research

MIT spinoff, OPT, ramps up production of its 3D-printed nasal swab

Spinoff OPT Industries is scaling up production of novel metamaterials, such as swabs for Covid-19 testing.
How buildings and cities can become more intelligently responsive to the needs and desires of their inhabitants.
Archived
Article Research

Industry Talk | Tapis Magique: a choreomusical interactive carpet

Pressure-sensitive, knitted electronic textile carpet generates 3D sensor data based on body gestures, drives an immersive sonic environment
Article Research

Robotic Textiles in Action: OmniFiber

AZoM talks to Ozgun Kilic Afsar, a visiting doctoral student in the Tangible Media group, about her work on the OmniFiber project.
Article Research

New fibers can make breath-regulating garments

Robotic textiles could help performers and athletes train their breathing, and potentially help patients recovering from postsurgery changes
Project Research

Venous Materials: Towards interactive, fluidic mechanisms

By Hila Mor, Yu Tianyu, Ken Nakagaki, Benjamin Harvey Miller, Yichen Jia, Hiroshi IshiiThe Venous Materials project envisions a new way to …
Project Research

A Scalable Networked Smart Sensate Skin

We have developed tightly coupled sensor network that tries to mimic some of the sensory characteristics of a natural skin. Developed in a …
Archived
Publication Research

Electronic Textile Gaia: Ubiquitous Computational Substrates Across Geometric Scales

Wicaksono, I.*, Cherston, J.*, & Paradiso, J. A. (2021). Electronic Textile Gaia: Ubiquitous Computational Substrates Across Geometric Scales. IEEE Pervasive Computing.