Scientists Create Self-Assembling Robots

A team of engineers at Harvard, the Wyss Institute and MIT has created a team of flat robots that can fold themselves up into shapes and begin walking around—all without human intervention. The possibilities, as the engineers say, are endless: “Imagine a ream of dozens of robotic satellites sandwiched together so that they could be sent up to space and then assemble themselves remotely once they get there,” said Sam Felton, a Harvard doctoral student who worked on the project. “They could take images, collect data and more.” The robots’ design is based on the way amino acids fold themselves into proteins.