Israeli Study: ‘Mechanical Lego’ Can Turn Simple Structures Into Smart Materials

With a few mathematical rules, the scientists could predict in advance how the material will react and how many ways it can move.

By Shula Rosen

A team at Tel Aviv University has shown that smart materials can be built like mechanical Lego — from small, identical triangular pieces that snap together in different patterns to control how the material bends, stiffens, absorbs impact, or even performs calculations.

The work appeared in Physical Review Letters and was led by Prof. Yair Shokef, with undergraduate student Tomer Sigalov and partners in the Netherlands.

The focus is on metamaterials, where behavior comes from design and geometry rather than the raw substance.

By connecting the triangles in different ways, the researchers created areas that either move freely or become “frustrated,” where the shape prevents motion even when force is applied.

With a few mathematical rules, the scientists could predict in advance how the material will react and how many ways it can move.

That means designers do not need heavy simulations or trial-and-error testing.

They can “assemble” a material from these parts for a specific job — whether that is soaking up shocks, changing shape in a controlled way, or acting as a mechanical system that handles information.

When pressure was applied in tests, the material did not give way all at once. It folded step by step, a useful trait for protective gear and impact absorption.

The team also showed that the structures can perform matrix-vector multiplication — a basic calculation used in artificial intelligence — using motion alone, without electronics.

“The study shows how smart materials can be built in a way that resembles mechanical Lego,” Prof. Shokef told Ynet. “Instead of designing each material from scratch, we used a small number of simple triangular building blocks, each with known behavior. As with Lego, the cleverness is not in the individual block but in how they are connected.”

He added: “A small change in the arrangement creates a big difference in overall behavior — flexibility, stiffness, a graded response to pressure or even the ability to perform calculations. In addition, our work shows that computation does not have to take place only on electronic chips. Logic and computation can be embedded in the material itself.”

Researchers say this approach is part of a growing field known as “computing in materia,” with potential uses in soft robots, smart sensors, and systems that can operate for long periods without an external power source.