A Romanian researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has led a study that resulted in the concept of robots which self-assemble when the material they are made of is being heated.

Known as M-Blocks, the robots are cubes with no external moving parts. Nonetheless, they're able to climb over and around one another, leap through the air, roll on the ground, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces, according to the MIT.

Romanian researcher Daniela Rus (photo, center) led this study, and got her inspiration from the Japanese art of origami. This innovation could turn robot manufacturing simpler and faster, specialists believe.

The technology consists in a flywheel inside each M-Block that can reach speeds of 20,000 revolutions per minute. When the flywheel is braked, it imparts its angular momentum to the cube, specialists explain. On each edge of an M-Block, and on every face, permanent magnets allow any two cubes to attach to each other.

More about it, here.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: MIT, Photo by: M. Scott Brauer)