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There is no “I” in TEAM, but there is “T” for Terminator… Perhaps not for Terminator, but UPenn does have robots working together in a team.  Robots usually team up for one thing and one thing only  - Destroy all humans! However, it seems that UPenn researchers not only are not concerned about robots teaming up, they are actually designing floating robots that can work together as team and create useful structures in the water.

Mark Yim and his students are trying to get this big fleet of small robotic boats to cooperate to form all sorts of useful structures. By coupling together, a large enough swarm of these things is capable of forming, bridges, runways, or even islands. UPenn has over 100 of ‘em, each one of which is controlled with a Gumstix and uses four separate motors to enable omnidirectional movement and zero-radius turns.

At least Evan Ackerman, the author of the article, displays some understanding of the real intentions behind robots engaging in teamwork. Clearly, the Machine Overlords do have him fooled by the  apparent cuteness of the robot boats…

I guess we can’t realistically promise that any swarm of robots doesn’t have world domination on its minds. But until it’s demonstrably too late, we’ll just keep on calling them cute. And these robotic boats from the University of Pennsylvania are totally cute.

Via  http://spectrum.ieee.org - Floating Robotic Shipping Containers Team Up to Create Islands and Runways

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