Shape-Shifting Robot Uses New Locomotion Strategy

Building conventional robots typically requires combining components like motors, batteries, actuators, body segments, legs, and wheels. A new approach builds a robot entirely from smaller robots called smarticles. The 3D-printed smarticles (smart active particles) can only flap their two arms. But when five of them are confined in a circle, they begin to nudge one another, forming a robophysical system known as a supersmarticle that can move by itself. Adding a light or sound sensor allows the supersmarticle to move in response to the stimulus — and even be controlled well enough to navigate a maze.