Have you ever read Vehicles? It’s a favorite around modbot because it’s basically a set of thought experiments about how we can understand the world through simple robotic elements. As Braitenberg adds simple pieces of technology to tiny robots, the reader starts to see how lifelike complexity really can emerge from simple building blocks.
One of the little technological enhancements that results in interesting emergent behavior is stacking up simple sensors in a grid: this enables a robot to detect not only whether anything is in front of it, but to detect certain things. Apparently, we actually do a little bit of thinking with our eyes.
Take this simple Cubelets robot, for example. It’s a grid of twelve Distance sensors configured into a secret lock that can only be opened by a special key. Sure, Cubelets are robot blocks, and the resolution of the sensor grid is pretty low, but 2^12 means that there are 4096 possible combinations for a secret key. Pretty hard to hack for a toy.
Status lights are boring, though, right? Since Cubelets are modular, we’ll just snap on a few Drive blocks instead and turn the lock into a locked door. Look, candy!
I built these two robots a couple of weeks ago with a brand-new Cubelets programming system and I’ve been waiting to share them until it’s ready to launch. Today’s the day; if you’re interested, take a look at Cubelets Flash, download it, and start building some crazy custom robots.
Your Cubelets will all need to be running OS4 to connect to Cubelets Flash. Right now, if you have old Cubelets, you’ll have to use a mobile device running the Cubelets app to upgrade them first. This workflow is a little funny because we screwed up. We used to be able to program OS3 Cubelets using Cubelets Studio, and when we launched OS4 it was incompatible with Studio. It took us longer to release Flash than we thought it would, and I know that a lot of you are pretty excited to program your OS4 Cubelets. Right now it’s in beta release with only the most important functionality so that we could get it launched for you to play with as quickly as possible. Enjoy.
