Selecting an appropriate sequence is an instance of the distributed graph coloring problem, which can be solved in O (log (n)) time with n being the number of robots involved. We demonstrate our ...

The first thousand-robot flash mob has assembled at Harvard University. Just as trillions of individual cells can assemble into an intelligent organism, or a thousand starlings can form a great ...

A "swarm" of simple-minded robots that teams up to move an object too heavy for them to manage individually has been demonstrated by robotics researchers. The robots cannot communicate and must ...

Just like bees, the individual robots in this simulation have no master plan. Simply by responding to local cues, they are able to construct honeycomb-like structures. The method could presage a ...

In a computer simulation, Becker also showed how the same technique could be used to direct a 120-robot swarm to both spell out "Rice" and display the shape of the university's owl mascot.

The team designed mathematical rules that allow tiny robots to self-assemble into honeycomb-like structures by reacting only to what’s around them, without any top-down commands or detailed plans.