MIT develops tiny ‘walking’ motor that helps more complex robots self-assemble
The motor above is little more than a magnet and coil with some structural parts, but it can “walk” back and forth or make the gears of a more complicated machine move back and forth.
On its own, this little moving microbe is impressive enough, but its real potential lies in what could happen were it to be assembled with others of its ilk, and with other building-block robotics components made up of simple parts, which is the vision of Gershenfeld and his research team.
Previously, they’ve already shown that other core components can be assembled from the same limited set of fundamental ingredients, and in the future, the idea is that these tiny core machines could actually automatically self-assemble into larger structures capable of carrying out specific tasks.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/02/mit-develops-tiny-walking-motor-that-help-more-complex-robots-self-assemble/