WOW... What a robot

[Aburame Shino]

Reminds me of the living stairs from the Harry Potter movies. As cool as that thing is though, what would you use it for besides your own personal amusement? I'm sure there's something, but I can't really think of anything.

[paulcd2000]

so freakishly awesome. I can think of hundreds of possible uses

[phrontist]

If they can communicate between themselves there are all sorts of self-organizing applications... it's really very cool, I'm suprised it hasn't been posted here before.

[MrBlack298]

Originally Posted by Aburame Shino

Reminds me of the living stairs from the Harry Potter movies. As cool as that thing is though, what would you use it for besides your own personal amusement? I'm sure there's something, but I can't really think of anything.

you kind of already said it: moving staircases

[ida_noeman]

That's pretty cool - but you'd have to have some sort of manipulator part to have it useful.
How is it programmed? Where is the programming?
Awsome, anyway.

[phrontist]

Originally Posted by ida_noeman

That's pretty cool - but you'd have to have some sort of manipulator part to have it useful.
How is it programmed? Where is the programming?
Awsome, anyway.

Imagine them as 1mm cubes... make your own manipulator! Since they can replicate themsevles, you can vary the degree of precision of a specific peice easily!

[agndoggieboi]

omg that was completely awsome!!! now if there was like plenty of them then i can play actual tetris with that thing

[sciencenerd]

Originally Posted by Aburame Shino

Reminds me of the living stairs from the Harry Potter movies. As cool as that thing is though, what would you use it for besides your own personal amusement? I'm sure there's something, but I can't really think of anything.

I read an article about these a few months ago, I can't remember where. This is a proof of concept. It isn't intended to do anything itself, just to show what is possible. For example, you could have different "manipulator" attachments as well as "movement" cubes, and it could pick the best shape and manipulator for a given task, then quickly switch to a new one for a new task. The possibilities are endless.

Originally Posted by phronist

Imagine them as 1mm cubes... make your own manipulator! Since they can replicate themsevles, you can vary the degree of precision of a specific peice easily!

Actually, these things can't replicate... yet. However, is it possible? Yes. And that is what will make these things truly useful. People have been demonstrating nano scale creations for years. And now they have a macro-scale completely modular robotic system. All that remains to be done is integrate these two technologies, and they will become powerful. Add in self-replication, and they will be unstoppable.

[Alekat]

Originally Posted by sciencenerd

All that remains to be done is integrate these two technologies, and they will become powerful. Add in self-replication, and they will be unstoppable.

Not as easy as adding a dash of salt, but it would definitely be revolutionary.

[Stephen P]

Sweet, I saw this same robot when I visited Cornell last spring break and a professor showed me his lab.

[Matt Royek]

That would be very useful if it was to be expanded by quite a bit in size. Mainly because something that is that small wouldn't be useful for anything else than what it was doing.

But if you were able to stick something like that into a size of a robotic arm on such things as production lines. It could do so much in places like loading docks!