Ariel Ekblaw

So the tiles have essentially like AI built into the pieces themselves, into the hardware.

Right.

And they can decide if they bonded correctly.

And we're really inspired by biomimetic systems, like how proteins and DNA self-assembles in the body and can correct itself.

It's both.

So I went on this amazing trip, and we had an incredible opportunity to help restore ancient Roman mosaics.

And we learned about tesserae, these tiny little tiles that make up the bigger mosaic.

And I came home incredibly inspired to make my work fit in that word.

Yes.

It's a terribly tortured acronym.

Never going to do this again.

Exactly.

You got to lean into the nerd dub.

So it stands for Tessellated Electromagnetic Space Structures for the Exploration of Reconfigurable Adaptive Environments.

Tell me that's too much.

I know it is.

Yeah.

So when you have a modular system like this, you have a lot of seals that have to really work well to be able to, for example, use it as a habitat to keep air pressure inside.

So we're designing a system of gasketing or clamps that would actually bring the structure in together and hold air pressure together.

And then the second of many things we think about is how do we protect the human crew that's inside this big buckyball?