Modular bots learn art of self-reinvention

摘要

The board meeting is over. In the next 10 minutes, people will be arriving to hear a lecture, so the chairs walk across the room and stand in neat rows, starting at the back. The table, no longer needed, dismantles itself and reforms into a few more chairs, and these go to join the others. Even more chairs start to emerge from stacks of little square boxes along the sidewall, each one wiggling along to take its place until the room setup is complete.