This is the Illuminato X Machina, a “cellular” style computing system.  Each unit is a fully functioning computer with its own processor, storage and communications.  You can watch above as a change in the operating software is propagated across the grid. You can see the LEDs in the video going nuts, there are actually LEDs on the sides too. [Justin] described it to us as a personal fireworks show on your desk.  This system is fully open with the schematics and source code available on their site. You might recognize these guys too, we covered their Open Source GameBoy.

Introducing ERP: Experimental Robotic Platform. This is an open source, modular robotics platform that, as you can see above, didn’t fair too poorly in the Robogames 2009. [John] has been working on this platform for roughly 2 years and states that it will never be “finished”. It is a development platform, and is always changing and being updated.  You can follow along on the project page to see the major design changes as they happen, such as the wheel suspension system cut from a single piece of plastic. All of the pieces, schematics, and software are available for download. Be sure to scroll down and see ERP’s reaction to some of crabfu’s inventions.

Development seems to be moving forward, the pictures have been updated frequently. Lets hope to see a fully functional demo some time soon. Some more detailed information on the build might be nice as well. This may remind you of our story on MachineCollective. While there are similarities in that they’re modular, SyncMaster appears to be a much more polished and portable product. Keep us updated [D.St-Amand].

The Siftables are quite interesting. They are an information interface that is supposed to be more physical and natural. The analogy they use is a container of nuts and bolts can be sifted through quite easily using your hands. They envision us being able to sift through data similarly. They also mention that it could be used as a gestural interface as well.

Each unit is a small device with a screen, wireless communication, and IR sensors. There are some pictures of the units in action as well as a video on their site.

[via Make Flickr Pool]

Currently, they support software enviroments like: Processing, Max/MSP, VVVV, and Adobe Flash. That list will undoubtedly grow as the community plays with it. They envision the hardware connecting via MIDI, OSC, RS232, TCP/UDP, DMX, or USB.

They encourage others to design their own inputs. Community members can share modifications and designs, though there isn’t a forum or store yet. If you design a setup that you really like, they can even fabricate a single unit for you. Keep your eyes on this one, it could be a real hit.

A similar idea for general gadgetry can be seen over at Bug Labs. Starting with a base unit, you can add different input and output modules to create various useful functions. They currently offer GPS, a camera, a display, and motion sensing. Mix and match to make your dream gadget.

[McLurkin] was an entertaining speaker and had an interesting view of robotics. He is optimistic that robot parts will become more modular, so it will be easier to build them, and more importantly, faster to design them.

Some quotes:

• “There’s more sensors in a cockroach’s butt than any robot”
• “12 engineer years to design, 45 minutes to build”
• “If it can break your ankle, it’s a real [rc] car.”

His swarm (pictured above) is made up of over a hundred small identical bots, but he only brought about a dozen with him. The demo was still quite impressive. He had the robots spread out, clump together, play follow the leader and circle the wagons. Each behavior had a very simple rule behind it. To spread out, for example, each robot tries to move away from it’s nearest neighbor. The really fun part was when he had the robots perform a physical bubble sort. The rule for this was that each bot tried to put a higher-id bot on one side and a lower-id bot on the other. After a minute or so of bumping around the bots all lined up in id order.

I was interested in the details of the robot itself. Here’s a picture with the parts labeled.

Each robot has a unique ID number. They communicate with each other via IR and have sensors so that they can tell which direction and how far away the other bots are. The lights on top are just indicators so you can tell what the bots are doing. A mesh network is rebuilt several times a second, creating a directed graph from the ‘leader’ (which can be any arbitrary bot) that connects to each bot in the swarm. Any bot can act as a repeater, relaying instructions to bots that can’t talk to the leader directly.

Robot swarms are not a new idea: they’ve been floating around as concepts for many years. However, [McLurkin] was one of the first to actually build and program a large swarm (at one time he held the record for the largest robot swarm in the world). The idea caught on with researchers and today there’s even an open source robot swarm project. If you’re not up to building a whole bunch of robots, there are also simulators.

After the demo, we asked [McLurkin] about the cost of the robots. He said he didn’t know for sure, but estimated at least $2000 per bot. When we commented that “that’s a lot of money for 100 bots”, he pointed out that compared to the $20K+ that research robots can go for, it’s a bargain. He also said “This whole new world of hobby robotics just didn’t exist in the 90′s”. For robots to be deployed in swarms of hundreds or even thousands, in situations where they can get damaged or lost (search and rescue, military exercises) the cost will need to drop dramatically.

Here he is packing up his robot swarm. After the demo, we half expected them to pack themselves – no, they don’t.

For more info on robot swarms, their inspiration and possible uses take a look at [McLurkin]‘s web site.