Final Project: Puzzling Robots

"I have not failed. I've just found 10.000 ways to create something else.

- adapted from Thomas A. Edison "I have not failed. I´ve just found 10000 ways that won't work."

Overview

Goal: Develop a concept, design, and prototype for modular building blocks (see (1), (3), (4), and (5) for examples) that can be manually connected and disconnected. These modules will include removable connections for information propagation (see (6), (7), (8) for reference) and operate using swarm robotics principles (9). The system's functionality will be adjustable via a user interface.

I will focus on static or 2D systems to ensure feasibility. The primary objective is to create a modular system of up to 10 simple, interactive modules that can be physically assembled, tested, and used in games such as puzzles, reaction-based tasks, or memory challenges.

Use Case: Exploring gaming opportunities, including puzzles, serious games, and reaction-based activities, using modular robotic systems.

Nickname: “Puzzling Robots” (puzz rob)

Related work

(1) Kyle Gilpin, Ara Knaian, and Daniela Rus (2010) Robot Pebbles: One Centimeter Modules for Programmable Matter through Self-Disassembly, IEEE

(2) Kirstin Petersen, Radhika Nagpal, Justin Werfel (2012) TERMES: An Autonomous Robotic System forThree-Dimensional Collective Construction, MIT Press

(3) Bhalla and Bentley (2012) Programming Self-Assembling Systems via Physically Encoded Information Morphogenetic Engineering Understanding Complex Systems, p. 157-188

(4) Gross and Dorigo (2008) Self-Assembly at the Macroscopic Scale, Proceedings of the IEEE

(5) Blinky Blocks

(6) Kevin A. Holdcroft, Christoph H. Belke, Samir Bennani, and Jamie Paik (2021) 3PAC: A Plug-and-Play System for Distributed Power Sharing and Communication in Modular Robots, IEEE/ASME Transactions On Mechatronics, Vol. 27, No. 2, p. 858-867

(7) Christoph H. Belke. and Jamie Paik (2019) Automatic Couplings With Mechanical Overload Protection forModular Robots, IEEE/ASME Transactions On Mechatronics, Vol. 24, No. 3, p.1420-1426

(8) Kevin Holdcroft, Anastasia Bolotnikova, Christoph Belke, and Jamie Paik (2022), Modular robot networking: a novel schema and its performance assessment, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

(9) Sophia Guzmán Artmann (2024), Swarm Robotics: A State Of The Art Review, FG Neuroinformatik und Kognitive Robotik TU Ilmenau, Hauptseminar