-"The MIT researchers are currently building an army of 100 cubes"
Hardly "unleashes hundreds of swarmbots", more like unleashes eight of them, and plans to release more .. Quite a misleading article title.
edit: I'm not complaining about the HN title, which is just taken from the article. I'm pointing out that the actual article title, which states that hundreds of these bots have been unleashed (lie, it's about eight) and that they self assemble (lie, they require direct instruction) is misleading...
Agreed. Terms like army and unleashed as well as the Terminator 2 reference in the article attempt to jazz up a piece of work which is interesting enough in it's own right.
It encourages me to be disappointed when I actually read the article, which is not exactly the best state to put me in if you want me to appreciate your article.
Same. I really, really hope no researcher/terrorist/researcher-terrorist releases some kind of grey goo in the next hundred years. That sounds like a terrible way to die.
Energy use seemed like a significant issue - how many flywheel spinups do you get out of a battery?
They could include a charging circuit that routes power through the assembled blocks. Each unit would still require it's own independent power for disconnected motion, but they could recharge when connected.
I think these robots are missing a few things that would make it actually useful. They need a latching mechanism to increase strength when they are in position. And they need a manipulator that can bend while locked onto two other cubes.
When I see these I think of a flexible exoskeleton or simulated bones. They are missing what would be the cartilage and muscle of a moving being. But who knows this could be a great step in that direction.
A step, indeed; this is research, it need not be actually useful. The things you mention, I can see as "left as an exercise for the reader".
I am more worried about power efficiency. Corrections welcome, but I think accelerating and (rapidly, in many cases) decelerating a flywheel can't be that efficient. Also, I don't see how those flywheels could efficiently move a large assembly of these things. Let's say you have a 5x5x5 cube: how would they work together to move that? Fall apart and reassemble?
I actually think that spinning up a momentum wheel is fairly low energy, but it's been a long time since we did that.
Like I said, if they locked together you could get movement from a huge cube. But I think the key in these guys is to build dynamic rigid bodies and have "joints" that move around to connect them and help them actuate. That'd be awesome.
They could also snake along the ground doing a chain where one goes from the back to the front, then the next and so on. Anyway, pretty cool idea to start from. I can't wait to see if they iterate this and add cameras and a main controller or anything like that!
I was thinking the same thing until I saw how they rotated along the paired edge. They don't need "cartilage and muscle", they're machinery, they need a hinge and the ability to apply force to move that hinge. With a stronger magnetic point along they edge, the swing of a hinge can be accomplished, though it will take some very fine tuning of the actuator and braking to accomplish something like walking, but I suspect it can be done.
I'm pretty sure I have read of a similar self assembling cubes concept in a science magazine when I was a kid (i.e. 20 years ago). The concept was only rendered in 3D (which was a piece of cake even then for it was only cubes).
Pretty neat to see that come to reality.
Scaled down to 1/1000th of it's current size and that would be an interesting way to perform complex operations, like brain surgery. No more cutting in a straight line, instead you can move around objects. Though by that time we'd probably have little self-propelled nano-bots doing this work more efficiently.
Dynamic stabilization would be interesting. This could "fill" in an area, say the sudden damage to a building, perhaps even a space station or spaceship.
Movement could be another feature. This could serve as wheels to move over complex terrain (up mountains, through the bottom of the ocean). They could go from fins, to wheels, to little hands or claws, etc...
>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.
I doubt that the experts were thinking about 1cm blocks when they passed their judgment.
I have to admit I was extremely disappointed with the video after reading the title. 8 cubes with motors that can move via radio commands? Astonishing...
Agreed, but give them credit for building something new that arguably fits under "basic science" and might have unexpected applications in the future. For instance, I could imagine a system like this for reconfiguring parts of a satellite after it has been launched into space.
seem to be an interesting thing. Yes the article is of somewhat lesser quality than the MIT own, but Thank you for post it never-the-less. I'd hope they will try to open a bit their project, so technically like minded people will be able to contribute. :)
>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
Sounds interesting. But when will I get a robot to cook my meals, clean my apartment, and do my laundry?
It's very cool and very clever from a hacking and engineering standpoint but I don't see what they're aiming for.
It seems they want to make groups of cubes that can autonomously reconfigure themselves, but what will they do once they get that? What task could they achieve?
I guess it could make a fun toy but I can't think of anything else.
"But the researchers believe that a more refined version of their system could prove useful even at something like its current scale. Armies of mobile cubes could temporarily repair bridges or buildings during emergencies, or raise and reconfigure scaffolding for building projects. They 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 reorganize themselves to provide solutions."
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/simple-scheme-for-self-as...
Hardly "unleashes hundreds of swarmbots", more like unleashes eight of them, and plans to release more .. Quite a misleading article title.
edit: I'm not complaining about the HN title, which is just taken from the article. I'm pointing out that the actual article title, which states that hundreds of these bots have been unleashed (lie, it's about eight) and that they self assemble (lie, they require direct instruction) is misleading...