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Solid Knitting Machine - The Machine Which Makes Physical Objects Updatable

Solid Knitting Machine - The Machine Which Makes Physical Objects Updatable
2018 INNO-vation Disruptive Challenger

Knitting is a digital fabrication method. It gives a single thread an inherently discrete property. It creates a whole object through aggregating each knitted stitch by organizing the way the thread is connected. With this feature, knitted objects can be copied with knitting patterns, undone to a previous state and updated from there, like software. Solid Knitting, Yuichi Hirose's original technique to knit something dense, can apply the discrete properties of knitting even to something firm such as desks and chairs. This project aims to develop the Solid Knitting Machine, a machine to automate Solid Knitting.

Interview

Reshape and Reprint: the Potential of a 3D Solid Knitting Machine

Yuichi Hirose

Freelance Mechanical Engineer

Yuichi Hirose conducted research on digital fabrication at Hiroya Tanaka Laboratory in Keio University. After finishing his Master’s Degree there, he worked for Roland DG as a mechanical engineer on 3D milling machines. Now, he has left the company and currently develops a Solid Knitting Machine, which automates Solid Knitting, a method he invented to knit solid objects from 3D data. YouTube Channel