The support zipper and its applications to portable structures and robotics

Thursday, October 8, 2026, 11 a.m.

Bahen Centre for Information Technology, BA 3200

This lecture is open to the public. Please register using the link below.

Abstract:

With the help of collaborators, Bill Freeman recently completed a 40-year-long project. He developed a zipper with a novel function: when zipped, it becomes a rigid structural support, and when unzipped, it remains flexible. Applications include portable structures such as tents, where the zipper can replace traditional tent poles, as well as portable chairs, medical devices, and robotic legs whose lengths can adjust mid-stride. 

In this talk, Freeman will describe the journey of this invention and the associated entrepreneurial efforts, from the initial hand-cut basswood models used for a 1986 patent (now expired) to the current 3D-printable design, which has been showcased in videos that have garnered more than 20 million views. 

This work was conducted in collaboration with Jiaji Li, Maxine Perroni-Scharf, Xiang Chang, Mingming Li, Jeremy Mrzyglocki, Takumi Yamamoto, Dingning Cao, and Stefanie Mueller, and was presented at ACM CHI 2026.

Bio:

William T. Freeman is the Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT.  Since 2015, he has also been a research manager in Google Research in Cambridge, MA. His research interests are computer vision, computational photography and AI for science.  He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, and AAAI, and a co-author of the computer vision textbook, published by MIT Press.