Today's News, Tomorrow's Lesson - October 7, 2013

Emma Seith

Small cubes that can independently roll across the ground, leap
through the air, and snap together to form different shapes have been
developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT).

An army of 100 of the robots – known as M-Blocks – is now being
built. It is hoped that when the cubes are scattered randomly across
the floor, they will be able to identify each other, come together and
coalesce to become a chair, ladder or desk on demand.

Ultimately the hope is that the blocks can be miniaturized so that
hordes of swarming microbots can self-assemble, like the liquid metal
T-1000 robot in the Hollywood blockbuster Terminator 2.

A more refined version of the cubes – at their current size – could
prove extremely useful, the scientists say. For example, armies of
mobile blocks could be used to temporarily repair bridges or buildings
during emergencies, or to raise and reconfigure scaffolding for
building projects. They could assemble into different types of
furniture or heavy equipment as needed.

The blocks have no external parts but move with the help of an
internal flywheel. They stick together using magnets.

They are currently controlled by computer instructions sent over
wireless radio, but in future the researchers hope algorithms can be
loaded directly into the blocks, making them entirely autonomous and
capable of adapting to different environments. This ability to
potentially “think” independently leads to philosophical questions
about how the advance could impact the development of artificial
intelligence.

Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, which developed the M-Blocks, said they have
the potential to be revolutionary.

“A robot designed for a single task has a fixed architecture, and
that robot will perform the single task well but will perform poorly on
a different task in a different environment,” Rus said. “If we do not
know ahead of time what the robot will have to do and when it will have
to do it, it is better to consider making modular robots that can
attain whatever shape is needed.”