Self Assemble

Self-assembling robots are a subset of the larger area of modular robotics, which is concerned with creating separate robotic components that interact with one another in real time rather than the fixed-shape robots we are accustomed to seeing today. In a way similar to the self-healing, self-assembling T-800 model from the Terminator movies, it's the future, enabling engineers to create totally new types of dynamic machines based on what they need at the time.

Even though we have the initial prototypes of what these modular robots would look like, all of that is currently far in the future. The Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT is working on a project called M-Blocks where they have created 16 cube-shaped, 50mm X 50mm robots that can interact with one another and do basic tasks like moving in a line. Another project of a similar nature is SMORES-EP at the University of Pennsylvania, however their robots are more advanced and have superior mobility because each module has its own pair of wheels.