Arms and legs: how limiting!
November 27th, 2006 by The Head Rotor
Here are some totally cool robots made from small similar parts that can reconfigure themselves on the fly. Too wide to fit through the hole? Reconfigure yourself end-to-end and wriggle through like a snake. Then connect your head and tail so you can roll around like a tank tread. I’m sure our faithful readers can envision even more far-out applications.
This work was done several years ago at PARC, and it’s possible the forward-thinking managers there have axed it (read the book Fumbling The Future
for other shining examples of bean-counter management decisions) but I hope somebody somewhere is still working on it. So we should probably file this under “Asia kicks our ass!”
for other shining examples of bean-counter management decisions) but I hope somebody somewhere is still working on it. So we should probably file this under “Asia kicks our ass!”
November 28th, 2006 at 5:23 am
Future historians will include this when they write about the development of liquid mimetic polyalloys. Assuming of course there *is* a future.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
[...] Old timers might remember that le Rotour Supérieure’s first non-trivial post was about modular robots. Here’s some more crunchy self-configuring goodness. The idea is simple: make robots out of small identical parts that can attach to each other. Then everything else is just software. [...]