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Metal Spheres Swarm Together to Create Freeform Modular Robots
- robertlagrant 6y agoThis feels like those little robots from Big Hero 6 made real. I love it.
- UnbugMe 6y agoFor me, a yellow devil, ala Megaman came to mind. http://shmuplations.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/megaman17.gif http://shmuplations.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/megaman17... If they could make it so you could control them as a whole, once linked, then they would be getting somewhere. Maybe have some other RC pieces that are bars and the spheres could be the joints. Have it all linked with some IK action.
- shannifin 6y agoThat's what I thought... Needs the brain interface though.
- imvetri 6y agoEach sphere is a neuron. Together, it's brain.
- jugg1es 6y agoIs it using an electromagnet? or is it moving a permanent magnet around inside?
- utexaspunk 6y agoIt looks like a permanent magnet: https://spectrum.ieee.org/image/MzcxMTU3OA.jpeg https://spectrum.ieee.org/image/MzcxMTU3OA.jpeg
- wintorez 6y agoI have a hunch that we will discover (not invent) the strong AI not in Neural Networks, but in Swarm logic. Infinitely complex systems can emerge from simple units multiplied exponentially. I still can't stop being amazed by crazy thing they have discovered in Conway's Game of Life.
- navaati 6y agoIf that happens, it’ll be so far from human intelligence, and thus probably terrifying !
- wintorez 6y agoMy guess, which reads more like sci-fi than anything is, the strong AI will emerge as a side-effect of IoT communicating with each other. Once the number of connected things hits a critical mass (I'm talking about billions), it will happen.
- tobr 6y agoThere are already many billions of devices connected to the internet.
- wintorez 6y agoWe're still a few iterations away from what I call the primordial network that could lead to that. We need some sort of automatic peer-to-peer communication between nodes, that is not in place yet, but I'm guessing will become norm in the future to solve a different problem. I think "Edge computing" is taking us to that direction.
- baxtr 6y agoThat my friend sounds very similar to a famous movie from the 80s!
- wintorez 6y ago
- carapace 6y agoYes, and instead of small metal spheres you make big geodesic spheres that are also kites! (Cf. Alexander Bell's kites & Bucky Fuller's geodesic mega-structures.)
- sadness3 6y agoThis seems too complex, too prone to failure, and too difficult to keep powered. I imagine the first industrially viable modular robots will be solid-state, with a mains power supply which is able to connect ambiently or arbitrarily. Power distribution circuits will be dynamic, and the abundant power will be used to control multiple electromagnets per module.
- 1over137 6y agoReminds me of the bitbots in The Dervish House by Ian McDonald.
- zipotm 6y agoLooks like an alpha version of Genisys T1000
- zizee 6y agoKeep iterating on this concept and eventually we'll have liquid metal T-1000 like robots. Makes me wonder if Arnie could have defeated him/it by throwing lots of strong magnets into the mix.
- mleonhard 6y agoWould holes in the steel reduce the magnetic properties very much? Holes could enable sensors, charging, and optical communication. For inter-node communication, radio signals can conduct between the shells and would be far more robust than optical. But optical would be more resilient against interference, jamming, and eavesdropping.
- totemandtoken 6y agoReminds me a lot of this old open source project called Orb Swarm[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb_Swarm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb_Swarm
- andy_ppp 6y agoI had a dream once that I went to a panel in my home and reconfigured the whole place to be a centred around an open swimming pool, the nanobots my flat was made of just reconfigured themselves around me.
- imvetri 6y agoTada. Notes to self. Alternative experiment to do in computer. Make each sphere with a neuron that learns about space, time (given n cordinates of movement, how many cpu cycles it took to move). Next make each sphere made of optical material that can see outside from within. Wait until the sphere learns a visual model of its surroundings. Now the sphere can predict movement of other spheres in motion. It can focus on a single particular sphere. Let it find a way to communicate and then human snoop in. The sphere learns about itself from other sphere. (A group of spheres atached to them self and mimicing a sea wave) Overall a good candidate to be in here https://github.com/imvetri/artificial-intelligence/blob/master/Lab.md#group-of-spheres---neural-fluid-i-was-looking-for https://github.com/imvetri/artificial-intelligence/blob/mast...