Modular robot takes a kickin' and keeps on tickin'

August 31, 2008 8:40 PM

Self-assembling robot. A self-assembling chair. A swarm of robots attempting to assemble. (All you-tube links.)
posted by pyramid termite (14 comments total)

"...after successful reassembly, the system stands up and continues its task."

Awesome.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:38 PM on August 31, 2008

The first video is cool, the second one is alright, but the third?

Adorable.
posted by Arturus at 9:40 PM on August 31, 2008

Seriously, though, there's a big difference between machines that can repair themselves after actually being broken and machines that break apart into predefined units and reassemble themselves, LEGO-style.

That's quite the chair, though. I wonder if it can hold weight?
posted by dunkadunc at 9:42 PM on August 31, 2008 [2 favorites]

Today cute little robots "attempting to assemble."

Tomorrow, Devastator.
posted by synecdoche at 9:46 PM on August 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

posted by pyramid termite

almost eponysterical...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:55 PM on August 31, 2008 [2 favorites]

Wake me when they've got a self-assembling taco.
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:02 PM on August 31, 2008

Here are some water based self-assembly robots.
posted by eye of newt at 11:56 PM on August 31, 2008

Why do I feel bad when the robot in the first video gets kicked? Is Disney to blame?
posted by Deathalicious at 7:17 AM on September 1, 2008

Yeah, the third video is adorable. But it's a bad idea to let them crawl over the keyboard and mouse like that. Who knows, they might have $5 somewhere.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 7:48 AM on September 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

At first this reminded me of Moore's villian Modular Man, but I found out there was a Marvel villian with the same premise and name. Then I found this just googling around.
posted by P.o.B. at 11:43 AM on September 1, 2008

It's tough to find this impressive when you think about the fact that we're all "molecular self-healing" life forms, we just take ourselves for granted. And you don't (usually) have to pay some engineer 200K/year to design and construct us, we multiply for free.

Boo, hiss, down with Robots. Up with people.
posted by peppito at 12:56 PM on September 1, 2008

Boo, hiss, down with Robots. Up with people.

Hey now; Robots Are People Too!
posted by Aquaman at 9:14 PM on September 1, 2008

It's tough to find this impressive when you think about the fact that we're all "molecular self-healing" life forms...

No, that makes it more impressive. Not only are the robots doing something cool, they are getting more life-like.
posted by DU at 4:58 AM on September 2, 2008

If we allow them to assemble they'll plot against us.
posted by joelf at 2:18 PM on September 2, 2008