Question for programmable matter project

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For my science project, I am working on a moldable material that can change viscosity (from a fluid-like state to a rigid state). The material can be molded into any shape, and then air is removed with a vacuum. When all the air is removed, the material retains its shape and becomes hard. It is essentially a balloon-like sac, filled with granules which jam together.

My goal is to find a way to mold the material into very specific shapes. I want to be able to CAD a design, press a button, and turn the material into pretty much anything.

So far, I have had a few ideas on how to do this, but none of them seem to work. My first idea was to use some sort of dynamic moulding technology. This is pretty much a programmable version of those pin-impression toys you can buy, and the idea is that if you have two of them, you can program them into two sides of a mold and mold any object. This is appealing due to its precision, but it would require that I attach each individual rod into its own motor, which would be incredibly expensive and require tremendous computing power.

My second idea is to use either electromagnets or shape-memory nitinol coils to cause the rubber coating to contract, which would form the entire material into its desired shape. But again, this would require a lot of computing power, there are no commercially available electromagnets that are inexpensive and small enough, and nitinol wire would be very hard to precisely work with.

Is there any other way that you can think of for me to achieve this? If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks!