Apr. 2, 2012: Professor Daniela Rus and PhD student Kyle Gilpin of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT have developed "smart sand" -- a rapid prototyping system involving small robots that can assemble themselves into tools after being given basic instructions. (M. Scott Brauer)
Skip the pail and shovel: Your next sand castle may build itself.
Scientists and students with the Distributed Robotics Laboratory at MIT have developed "self-sculpting sand," the university said Monday.
New algorithms could enable heaps of the stuff that can assume any shape, allowing spontaneous formation of new tools or duplications of broken mechanical parts, the school said.
“They have the ability to latch onto their neighbors; they have the ability to talk to their neighbors; they have the ability to do some computation," explained Robert Wood, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Harvard University, and director of Harvard’s Microrobotics Laboratory
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/03/mit-researcher-student-invents-self-sculpting-sand/
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