Daniel Leithinger, Adam Kumpf and Hiroshi Ishii of MIT’s Tangible Media Group have created Relief, “an actuated tabletop display, which is able to render and animate three-dimensional shapes with a malleable surface. It allows users to experience and form digital models like geographical terrain in an intuitive manner. The tabletop surface is actuated by an array of 120 motorized pins, which are controlled with a platform built upon open-source hardware and software tools. Each pin can be addressed individually and senses user input like pulling and pushing.” Scale this thing up, either in terms of area or in terms of pins per square inch, and you’ve got an awesome, dynamic terrain display for exhibitions. Via Make.