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The Robot Swarms Are Coming

Gizmodo (and some lucky youngsters) got a sneak preview of an exhibit slated to open at Manhattan's National Museum of Mathematics in December: Robot Swarm.

The exhibit will feature robots developed by James McLurkin of Rice University's Multi-Robot Systems Lab. McLurkin and his team research distributed algorithms for multi-robot systems, that is how to use the combined abilities of several rather simple robots to perform complex tasks. 

The pint-sized bots in action at the exhibit preview each wore an infrared LED and four IR sensors, one on each corner. "Individually, each bot only 'knows' where it is in relation to its nearest colleague," reports Gizmodo, "but give six of those critters an algorithm to work within, and you'll see some complex, coordinated bot behavior."

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Start Date: 
Monday, August 18, 2014