25C3: affordable SWARM ROBOTICS

The Formica job was our preferred presentation at 25C3. The goal is to develop open source swarm robots as cheaply as possible. The team ended up building 25 robots in an assembly line fashion. With sufficient lead time, the cost might get as low as £15 each. Each bot has two direct drive cellphone vibration motors with small neoprene wheels. They’re managed by an MSP430 microcontroller. The only truly specialized chip is a fee controller so the bots can fee without any type of intervention. They have copper skis on the front that touch the ground airplane plus antennas to get in touch with Vcc. On top of the bot are three IR detectors for both navigation as well as for transferring firmware updates between bots. A reflective sensor is on the underside for detecting “food”. It appears like a excellent style as well as any type of simple method for anyone to begin researching swarm robotics.