Remember Gru’s minions? The little yellow helpers that listened to his every command (or tried, at least)? A team of engineers developed their own, as a way of showing a “swarm user interface” #todaymagic
Called Zooids, the open-source open-hardware platform features tiny robots which are no bigger than 2.6 cm in diameter and have wheels to move around. They’re also equipped with touch sensors, gyros and optical sensors that monitor their position, using patterns made by a high-speed DLP structured light projector above. All this hardware makes it possible for them to execute commands coming from a computer, whether it’s to move an object or to display information.
Zooids robots can work together to put together a comprehensive chart or just do mundane tasks like getting your phone from the kitchen. Best of all, you can replicate them at home thanks to this “minion” manual put together by the team.
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