Figure 1.

Levitational coding for soft living material fabrication. a) Schematic of hydrogel fabrication process. Hydrogel units were fabricated by photolithography with patterned masks at scales of many hundreds of micrometer. Gel precursor solution was pipetted onto a glass slide and then exposed to UV light. Scale bar is 1 mm. b) Cell seeded microbead fabrication. Images of microbeads coated with laminin first, and then incubated in cell suspension. Scale bar is 500 µm. c) Levitational self-assembly of cell-encapsulating building blocks in a mangetic setup composed of two NdFeB magnets with same poles facing each other. d) Object moves from larger magnetic field strength “B” to lower magnetic field strength, if the magnetic susceptibility of object is lower than magnetic susceptibility of the suspending medium. e) Forces acting on levitating objects at equilibrium height: magnetic force (F_m) and corrected gravitational force (F_g), which is the difference between gravitational force and buoyancy foce.