TRANSFORMERS

[Pæs]

http://www.kurzweilai.net/mit-inventor-unleashes-hundreds-of-self-assembling-cube-swarmbots

The experts said it couldn't be done. But research scientist John Romanishin of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has created  M-Blocks — cube robots with no external moving parts.

Despite that, they can magically climb over and around one another, leap through the air, roll across the ground, snap together into different shapes, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces.

Self-assembling swarmbots

Imagine hordes of swarming microbots that can self-assemble, like the "liquid steel" androids in the movie "Terminator II."

Armies of these mobile cubes could temporarily repair bridges or buildings during emergencies. These cubes could assemble into different types of furniture or heavy equipment as needed. And they could swarm into environments hostile or inaccessible to humans, diagnose problems, and then reorganize themselves to provide solutions.

They could even be special-purpose cubes: containing cameras, or lights, or battery packs, or other equipment that the mobile cubes could transport.

How M-Blocks work



The trick: a flywheel that can reach speeds of 20,000 revolutions per minute. When the flywheel is braked, it imparts its angular momentum to the cube. And on each edge of an M-Block and on every face, cleverly arranged permanent magnets allow any two cubes to attach to each other.

To compensate for its static instability, the researchers' robot relies on some ingenious engineering. On each edge of a cube are two cylindrical magnets, mounted like rolling pins.

When two cubes approach each other, the magnets naturally rotate, so that north poles align with south, and vice versa. Any face of any cube can thus attach to any face of any other.

The cubes' edges are also beveled, so when two cubes are face to face, there's a slight gap between their magnets. When one cube begins to flip on top of another, the bevels, and thus the magnets, touch. The connection between the cubes becomes much stronger, anchoring the pivot. On each face of a cube are four more pairs of smaller magnets, arranged symmetrically, which help snap a moving cube into place when it lands on top of another.

A cube army

The MIT researchers are currently building an army of 100 cubes, each of which can move in any direction, and designing algorithms to guide them. "We want hundreds of cubes, scattered randomly across the floor, to be able to identify each other, coalesce, and autonomously transform into a chair, or a ladder, or a desk, on demand," Romanishin says.

Romanishin, robotics professor Daniela Rus, and postdoc Kyle Gilpin will present a paper describing their new robots at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Japan in November.

[Don Coyote]

This is actually far more terrifying than the wildcat robot.

[Cain]

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[Ben Shapiro]

Just wait until they can make a wildcat robot out of nanobots.  Then I will shit my pance.

CUBED LLAMAS!

[Junkenstein]

Every day I love the future a little more. I hope this gets big funding, the potential is awesome.

Also, the idea of someone being able to turn a lot of them into some kind of giant mechanical something of doom. Now that's terror.

[Ben Shapiro]

Every day I love the future a little more. I hope this gets big funding, the potential is awesome.

Also, the idea of someone being able to turn a lot of them into some kind of giant mechanical something of doom. Now that's terror  Freedom.

[Pæs]

I really love the idea of these things building a ladder/stairway up to something, anchoring themselves at the top and then climbing up each other to carry on elsewhere.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Video 

[Ben Shapiro]

HOLY SHIT! WHAT HAVE WE DONE!

[P3nT4gR4m]

HOLY SHIT! WHAT HAVE WE DONE!

What we always do - invented something that could either save the world or destroy it.

As usual, it'll prolly end up doing a bit of both

[Ben Shapiro]

It will deliver Cheetos into people's mouth.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Yeah, then the software will glitch and, for a while, it'll start delivering peoples mouths into Cheetos 

[Pere Ubu]

They're noisy little buggers.

I do like how the black cube in the video misses its target a couple times. D'awwwww CUTE!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I love those, I was just talking with Space Cowboy about them this weekend. I love them because they mimic the modular design of organic matter, which is, in my opinion, the future of robotics.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I love those, I was just talking with Space Cowboy about them this weekend. I love them because they mimic the modular design of organic matter, which is, in my opinion, the future of robotics.

Whoa, lets not get ahead of ourselves. First we have living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. THEN the organic-thing, mmkay?