Researchers from Carnegie Mellon have been working on a multi-faceted project to improve studies regarding telescoping structures, and curves in particular. They have also worked in deployable structures, compact storage, computational folding, geometry of space curves, and mesh skeletonization. For creating prototypes, they used basic 3D printing but were still able to create complex shapes. In the future, they will use them to build on in improving geometric approximation, as well as replacing some of the current junctures with telescoping splitters. Read more at 3DPrint.com: http://3dprint.com/185608/cmu-telescoping-structures/