Mark Burginger, architect/inventor has been fascinated by the
geometries behind the emerging field of nanoscience, since a
college art project brought him in touch with the work of
architect/inventor, Buckminster Fuller. While continuing to design
residential and commercial projects in the city of Poway, (San
Diego County), California, and the surrounding areas, Burginger
pulled his cardboard model out of the closet and went to work on
his modular form building element named Qubits, which is now
patented.
Qubits geometry replicates snowflake design
Nanoscientists in industry and academia understand that Burginger
has a model that deserves further exploration. They also agree that
diverse structures could be built from Burgingers simple
crystalline shapes. Says Burginger, When I show it to biologists
and scientists they see it as some sort of molecular building
block. The physical ability of the modules to connect, matches
exactly with the spherical geometry of the buckyballs. It
will take more and more research to prove that there is an actual
structure to the atom that relates to whats going on with this
form. Just recently discovered, the C60 carbon atoms were named
buckminsterfullerenes or buckyballs for Fuller, whose work
as a comprehensive anticipatory design scientist anticipated the
structures weve come to know as nanotubes. Nanotubes are
used as molecular components for nanotechnology.
Modular element in construction of a sphere
The inspiration to develop Burgingers invention as the
Qubits toy came from Professor James Gimnewski of the
Nanoscience Institute at UCLA. Gimnewski, along with Professor
Victoria Vesna, Department Chair of Design and Media Arts at UCLA,
have been collaborating on a series of projects addressing the
impact of nanoscience on culture and consciousness. Recently they
opened a large exhibition, NANO, at the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art. Both Gimneski and Vesna understand the value of a physical
model like Burgingers Qubits to understanding the invisible
quantum world. Qubits Wins $10,000 Award From Elwood Norris,
American Technology Corp. To help him move forward with his
invention, Elwood Norris, the chairman of American Technology
Corporation, as well as a renowned inventor and recipient of the
prestigious $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for Invention, has given
Burginger $10,000 for his Qubits project. Norris, who lives in
Poway, said he has used his prize money to establish a foundation
to fund fledgling inventors and college students. Burginger is one
of three people to receive a grant so far, Norris said. The Qubits,
Norris said, "was really creative; it might be a learning tool,
besides a plain old toy. I think it stimulates your thinking about
different ways you can put things together and solve puzzles.
Qubits Development Process And Tools To take his model
from cardboard to prototype Burginger explained his process: I
built the 3D model first in ArchiCAD. I had people who would build
the polyhedral parts, the octahedron and the tetrahedron. They
built me little GDL pieces so that I could actually put together
the models. The tetrahedron and octahedrons are so basic, yet
nobody makes those pieces for some reason. From there I exported
the models into CINEMA 4D. Once they are in C4D you can start
working with them at a more elaborate level by using the HyperNurbs
and rounding of the objects. I was able to make a much better
looking model in C4D and then also it allowed me to export it as an
STL file which I used to make a physical hard model.
Screen shot of polyhedral module in development in CINEMA
4D
Burginger has been using CINEMA 4D from MAXON Computer since it
first hit the market as he has always been interested in the three
dimensional qualities of drafting. Burginger would like to be able
to spend more time learning the new tools in C4D. Burginger says,
My artistic tool, C4D has allowed me to become like an engineer.
Id also like to explore the Dynamics tool, which allows you to do
physical simulations. For me that would really be fascinating to be
able to build a computer simulation of my modules and subject them
to different types of physical activities and see how they react.
Why the name Qubits? Burginger explains, I wanted to think
about a small name that was catchy. Also I have been very
interested in nanotechnology, actually Im pretty deep with that.
In the future Qubits is going to be our new measure of computer
data. A qubit is a quantum bit that could be a 0, a 1 or
somewhere in-between or even a superposition of many different
numbers at once. Burgingers toy Qubits actually demonstrates these
various possibilities of position or whats called topology.
The purpose of this toy is to help children understand the concept
of any 3D image or object.
Polyhedral showing first generation topological patterning
Why A Toy Like Qubits Matters Qubits helps children to
understand that the position of an object is important. This is a
critical concept in molecular manufacturing. Rearranged coal makes
diamonds. Rearranged sand with a few impurities makes computer
chips. Playing with the Qubits toy can help children understand the
tremendous possibilities in re-arranging the basic building blocks
of nature. When we try to think about this tiny world it is too
abstract for most of us (A nanometer is one billionth of a meter).
Since we have no experience, it is hard to visualize and
understand. But what if we had a physical model of this tiny world
and could manipulate it as we would any of our other toys? This is
what Qubits accomplishes. It makes something invisible to the eye,
visible. Thats exciting! Buckminster Fuller in particular believed
the lack of popularity of mathematics was due to its lack of proof
in tangible experience. Manipulating physical models changes that.
Playing with this geometry allows for conceptual modeling that is
real science. Children dont need to know abstract formulas to
think like a molecular chemist or biologist; they have a toy that
allows them to do that. Qubits puts the fundamental building blocks
of nature into childrens hands.
Qubits Natures Building Blocks
It is widely acknowledged by the science community that creating a
visual expression of the concepts behind nanotechnology is
essential to understanding them. Dr.Gregory Damian Allis shared his
thoughts on teaching polyhedral geometry to children at length.
Allis is a quantum chemist/molecular nanotechnologist affiliated
with Syracuse University, Nanorex, Inc. and the Molecular
Engineering Research Institute. Says Allis: There's one side of
chemistry that's reactions and mechanisms and all the really
complicated stuff that scares organic students in college. Then
there's the structure and shape of molecules that results from how
atoms connect to one another, which is the side of chemistry that
gets less attention, but which is ultimately the most important
part. Atoms and Legos are conceptually the same thing. They're
both building blocks that connect in specific ways to make larger
structures, and the shape or strength of those structures depends
on what's being connected to one another and how many connections
are being made. That's what made playing with Legos so important to
what I do today, and that's the really important quality I see in
Mark's Qubits. As a chemist, I think that playing with these simple
structures would help any person to understand something important
about structure in chemistry, even if they didn't want to have
anything to do with chemistry! Whats Next? Buckminster
Fuller himself often talked about the importance of his
kindergarten experience in developing his ideas. He described being
so myopic as a child that when his teacher showed the class how to
make cubes with peas and toothpicks, he instead had to resort to
his imagination. The result was the four-faced triangle or
tetrahedron. Similarly Burginger looks forward to observing his
Qubits toy in action. Watching children use it will teach me what
I really need to know about developing this as a toy. I really need
to see what they do with it. A child with a simple toy is a
powerful thing! We invite you to visit:
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A special thank you to freelance writer Guest Columnist Marsha
Carlson |
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