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Behind a black curtain in a downstairs corner of the National Museum of Mathematics
in Manhattan (known as MoMath), a small group of mathematicians,
designers and engineers was hard at work — laughing, shouting, clapping
and having a blast, while being chased by robots.
They were doing final testing on an exhibit called Robot Swarm, opening Dec. 14 and featuring dozens of glowing, motorized, interactive robots that resemble horseshoe crabs.
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| Hannah Lawrence, left, and Rachel Lawrence
playing Robot Swarm, an exhibit in which one can control the movement of
differently colored robots. Photo: New York Times |
The
museum says it is the nation’s most technologically ambitious robotics
exhibit. But the assembled experts, standing in stocking feet, were as
excited as a gaggle of 6-year-olds.
Sealed
under an 11-by-12-foot glass floor, the small, colored robots swarm,
skitter and react to whoever is standing on top of the glass. It is a
strangely exhilarating sensation to be shoeless and have creatures —
albeit human-made, computer-controlled creatures — react to your every
step.
“It’s
cool, right?” asked a creator of the exhibit, Glen Whitney, who is also
a co-founder of the museum. “It’s a feeling of power.”
Four
visitors at a time will don harnesses with a small “reflector pod” on
the right shoulder. That sends a location signal to overhead cameras,
which transmit the information to the robots — which, in turn, move in
accord with a variety of programmed settings determined by visitors
working a control panel.
Set
the robots to “Run Away” mode, for example, and you can’t help feeling
like Godzilla, stomping around the glass floor and scattering the
frightened robots to the far corners of the grid. “Pursue” mode can be
downright creepy, with the robots — like giant glowing cockroaches or
trilobites — following you everywhere, trying to get as close to you as
possible, surrounding you and then refusing to go away — until the
algorithm is changed. In the more amusing “Spin” mode, the robots play a
game of Simon Says, turning in whatever direction you turn, spinning
when you spin.
In “Swarm” mode, the robots instead follow one another, like children
chasing a soccer ball. In “Robophobia,” they try to get as far away from
one another as they can, eventually settling on a static arrangement
that maximizes the distance between each one; that usually results in a
pattern, much like the particles in a crystal.
Beyond the fun factor, the robots demonstrate a hot topic of research these days: the mathematics of emergent behavior.
And
in “On Your Marks,” they organize themselves by color, making their way
around the play area like tiny bumper cars until they locate the others
in their group and line up accordingly.
When
the robots run low on power, they leave the play area and go to the
nearby docking zone to recharge. They are immediately replaced by
another robot, as if part of an artificially intelligent hockey team.
Read more...
Additional resources
Robot Swarm opens Dec. 14 at the National Museum of Mathematics, 11 East 26th Street, Manhattan. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Information: momath.org.
Additional resources
Robot Swarm opens Dec. 14 at the National Museum of Mathematics, 11 East 26th Street, Manhattan. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Information: momath.org.
