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I suggest reading the original linked article, if only because it includes a video with the zipper in action: https://news.mit.edu/2026/three-sided-y-zipper-design-0504
This is worth doing because I'm about to re-up the thread a la https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308.
This reads like it’s been machine generated.
Is this design practical? What would it be used for? With this zipping mechanism, can anything be attached?
Edit: Apparently I stopped watching the video too early. They demonstrate some uses where at max only one of the three sides can be attached to something, and it is used to create a rigid structure rather than joining multiple surfaces. The most interesting use demonstrated (IMO), is a tent with no tent poles, but it doesn't look like it would hold up to any significant weather, and would probably take up just as much space and weight as tent poles.
Just sell me the tent already!
They never show the fully packaged version of the tent, though. It looks like even in their non-rigid state they're too rigid to be folded up easily and carelessly into a compact shape.
Zippers are usually attached to something. Is this design practical? What would it be used for? With this zipping mechanism, can anything be attached? Edit: Apparently I stopped watching the video too early. They demonstrate some uses where at max only one of the three sides can be attached to something, and it is used to create a rigid structure rather than joining multiple surfaces. The most interesting use demonst…
Just sell me the tent already!
It brings to mind satellites assembling themselves in space. Send up a tightly packed box of spaghetti and extrude it into the desired physical shape upon arrival in orbit. For increased rigidity, paint with a solar pumped laser to weld the links together.
Or unseal purified metal surfaces, press them together, and use vacuum diffusion welding.
With enough time and/or sunlight, it can happen on its own.