Steiner’s first task at the MIT lab was to get the nanotube furnaces working manually, but he knew that to really get his lab breakthrough-ready, the furnaces needed to be automated. So he wrote a software program that automates a nanotube furnace using natural English syntax and fuzzy logic to help get us there faster.
"Just give it the instructions you would give an undergraduate and it can execute it," claimed Steiner, "Like ‘when the temperature gets to about 1000 degrees do X.’" This frees up his lab mates from having to spend hours next to the furnace making little tweaks and adjustments every few minutes and allows them to come back later to a batch of freshly baked nanotubes.

The intuitive, small footprint, English-syntax automation program will help the lab figure out how to make longer and more uniform nanotubes faster. Instead of having to babysit a high-maintenance process for hours, the researchers can actually leave the room and focus on other tasks, like analyzing data, or reading the latest literature.

Steiner calls the new program "Ansari" after private space explorer and X Prize sponsor Anousheh Ansari. Her work to open up space flight for all inspired Steiner to try to do the same for nanotech. He is working on a website that he calls "open source nanotech," where people will be able to download his automation software and learn about DIY nanotech.


The aerospace industry has already noticed the promise of nanomaterials and is sponsoring the MIT Nano-Engineered Composite aerospace STructures (NECST) lab. The lab is working to add carbon nanotubes to traditional carbon fiber composites to make them over a million times more conductive, which will save fuel by reducing an airplane’s weight. Seeing the 787 Dreamliner fly this winter with a carbon composite fuselage will be exciting. But seeing a plane that is made entirely of carbon fiber and nanotube-impregnated carbon fiber would be phenomenal.

CDT Systems, Inc. Invites Interest in Carbon Aerogel to Generate Hydrogen as Fuel for Small Engines [Market Watch- Wall Street Journal]

Flower-shaped Nanoparticles May Lead To Better Batteries For Portable Electronics [Science Daily]