“But Earth is home to another great commuter, whose populations number in the trillions and they don’t get stuck in traffic. 

Ants face the same traffic challenges that we do. But they don’t get in traffic jams, which is why scientists are looking to them for solutions to traffic among humans.”

NEW from It’s Okay to be Smart (@jtotheizzoe)

Tiny Swarming Robots Play Beethoven

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have taught a fleet of tiny robots to play Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” on a virtual keyboard.

The Khepera bots, as they are called, look more like bugs than bots. They’re just 5.5 centimeters across, they’re packed with sensors and they scoot around on two wheels.

Here’s how it works: A single “leader” bot knows the score and the positions other robots must be in to play the right notes at the right time. The leader sends this information to the robots closest to it, directing them to the appropriate positions on the virtual keyboard. Those robots, in turn, relay the information to the bots closest to them, mimicking the swarming behavior of insects.

The researchers hope to make the robots as efficient as possible by minimizing the distance traveled by each bot and using the fewest robots possible at any given time. This means the slower the tempo of the song, the fewer robots playing, and vice versa.