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While 3D printing is still a developing technology, 4D printing has begun to take form alongside. With the added dimension of time, researchers at Harvard University, taking inspiration from nature, have developed a 3D-printed flower that changes shape in water.

The idea is to develop a printable i=object capable of mimicking the way plants react to external stimuli like sun or rain.

A team of scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Harvard John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have unveiled the "4D-printed hydrogel composite structures...". The video above shows the printing process and the transformation of a 4D-printed, orchid-shaped hydrogel composite structure.

Hydrogel composites contain cellulose fibrils, an organic compound found in plants. The gel solidifies quickly when it is printing and the cellulose fibrils enable the shape-changing.

"Using one composite ink printed in a single step, we can achieve shape-changing hydrogel geometries containing more complexity than any other technique, and we do so simply by modifying the print path," says co-lead author and graduate research assistant A Sydney Gladman. "What’s more, we can interchange different materials to tune for properties such as conductivity or biocompatibility."

This research has been funded by the US Army Research Office and the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

You might try these flowers for Valentine's Day.