Self-Assembling Phone Built By MIT Engineers, Could Have Major Industry Impact

Right now, manufacturing smartphones is a meticulous, precise activity that requires the right equipment and attentive personnel. However, MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab just changed the game when it comes to putting together smart gadgets with its self-assembling phone. By simply rolling parts inside a tumbler, a phone is assembled in under a minute.

The man behind the innovation is Skylar Tibbits, a research scientist at MIT’s department of architecture, Fast Codesign reports. Tibbits explained his ideas regarding manufacturing.

"If you look at how things are manufactured at every other scale other than the human scale—look at DNA and cells and proteins, then look at the planetary scale—everything is built through self assembly," he tells Fast Codesign. "But at the human scale, it's the opposite. Everything is built top down. We take components and we force them together."

Tibbits collaborated with phone design Marcelo Coelho to create the future of electronics through self-assembling items for consumers. Right now, the project is still in its early stages, but the results are showing promise. By bringing the parts together, adding an energy source, and rolling all the pieces inside a tumbler, a cell phone could build itself without the need for direct human interference or the use of complicated assembly systems.

This could have major ramifications on the manufacturing level, where companies currently have to depend on human workers in order to produce the products that they sell. By taking humans out of the equation, tech companies could potentially speed up manufacturing and cut costs, though with the result of millions losing their jobs.

As the lab’s website indicates, self-assembly is “scale-independent,” which means that it has no limitations as to how big or small it could go. This indicates that electronics such as smart devices, computers, cars, and aircraft could become self-assembling in the future, without the need for humans.