A few months ago we talked about NASA and a project that had begun to place 3D printers in the International Space Station to make tools or parts independently. The idea was quite interesting and solved the problem of lack of supplies and eliminated any waiting time, for example, preparing an emergency mission. The team's Distributed Robotics Lab at MIT is also working on a project to build parts and objects autonomously but instead of 3D printers want to use robots as a small basic pieces that can unite and build anything .



Robots that assemble these robotic cubes 1 cm high have some magnets that are used to join with other cubes by sorting algorithms. The idea is that from a bucket full of these little cubes can generate concrete objects by assembling these cubes that would communicate with each other to build the required structure:

These clever cubes one centimeter high lead inside a small microprocessor (running a 32-KB and has a 2KB RAM) and only 4 of the 6 cube faces are an electro-magnet which is controlled by the processor and used to stick to other blocks (added 6 magnets failed for lack of space in the cube).

And what is the purpose of this research? The results of this work, already, are a milestone in the field of distributed robotics and open the door to many practical applications. Still, the team wants to continue working on the miniaturization of these basic units to achieve better replicas of any object and aim to develop a "grain of sand" intelligent with which to build any type of form and, following a function, to recycle and reuse items

I must admit that when I read MIT first thing that came to mind was the image of the Replicators in the series Stargate SG-1 , a "mechanical life forms" that were composed of autonomous blocks joined to form robots that were in check Asgard. Sometimes investigations take us to the world of science fiction but, fortunately, are still somewhat away from replicating the TV series.

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