Welcome to FIDL!
The central focus of the Fabrication-Integrated Design Lab is exploring problems that require solutions at the intersection of design and manufacturing, often involving materials or environments that bring both unique and beneficial attributes while simultaneously imposing complex restrictions on design and manufacturing spaces. Our two primary project pillars of fabrication-integrated design work include soft robots (soft machines) and molten glass fabrication. These two areas involve extreme materials that undergo large deformations and/or that challenge the framework of traditional (rigid) machine design. Our goal is to fill in the gaps where we can (1) leverage traditional rigid machine design to inform best practices, but also (2) identify areas where traditional machine design and manufacturing are limited, and (3) co-develop new design and manufacturing spaces to be able to better leverage these materials.
