Johannes Overvelde was pursuing a PhD in applied mathematics at Harvard University when he met Chuck Hoberman, designer of the Hoberman Sphere, a collapsible rainbow ball for kids. Both lived in Cambridge and had similar interests. Overvelde was working on developing transformable materials that could change stiffness, and Hoberman, an architect who also studies kinetic structures, had been thinking about how different materials could take on the properties of his sphere, changing form by articulating at different joints.
