#roboticss

MIT demonstrates self assembling cube bots.

 MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has shown off their 'M-Blocks' - small block shaped robots that can move and position to self-assemble into different shapes, despite having no external moving parts.

To achieve the feat, the team built a flywheel into the blocks, rotating at up to 20,000rpm. 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.

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.

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.