Miniature Robotic Mariners Construct Comedic Maritime Structures
“Tiny robot boats build floating structures”
“‘Just as ants create complex structures from very simple units, the robots can build large-scale, complex shapes,’ says Miskin. ‘Each robot doesn’t know what the others are doing or what the overall structure is.'”
Indeed, just look at these teeny-tiny robot boats, like digital ants, making big, complex shapes. They’re a bit like the informal tech teams of the corporate world, each unaware of what their co-workers are doing. Yet somehow, against all odds, they manage to create something meaningful, or at least something that ensures they get to keep their parking spot for another month.
Instead of slinging code and popping out apps, these floaty robo-ants aren’t confined to a cubicle. Designing intricate geometries in a giant body of water is more their speed. And what a sight it is. Each robot doesn’t concern itself with the overall task. It doesn’t reckon it is crafting part of a bridge, or a huge floating Swiss Roll. It’s only focused on the immediate job at hand.
The same principle applies here that works for ants and certain tech departments – coordination without communication. The robots sense their position relative to their peers, like some corporate version of Marco Polo, and use simplistic algorithms (like workplace politics) to coordinate their behavior based on their limited perspective. And just as ants can’t WhatsApp their colleagues to clarify a few tasks, these robots avoid getting tangled in complex communication protocols. Less efficient? Perhaps. More relatable? Absolutely.
Though, let’s not downplay the impressiveness of this feat. MIT engineers painstakingly designed these robot boats, or ‘floppies’ as I rather affectionately call them, to reshape into new configurations. So, even if one of them flunks and cannot perform its duty (like that one guy in your team who only shows up for free food), the others around it can adjust and take over the task – a brilliantly coded, floating example of the “next man up” mentality.
Each of these floppies only occupies about half the space of a playing card and can zip around at impressive speeds. Yet, in spite of their size, they’ve been built to withstand quite a few elements that might come their way, just like how resilient tech teams stay afloat amidst an ocean of bug reports and short deadlines.
In the end, we may just want to stick these floppies in a fish tank in the office. It might provide a comforting metaphor for the tech world: each of us zipping around, merrily unaware of what the others are doing, yet able to deliver a finished project (or at least a decent-looking fake one) at the end of the quarter.