Word: swarm
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Robot Maker Four creative minds built machines that drive, swarm, rescue and even dance...
...SWARM KEEPER Metal Insects On Wheels...
...vast terrain; if one is destroyed, others fill in. His 112 titanium robots resemble small car batteries on wheels. McLurkin is working with a team at iRobot, a private Boston-based robotics firm, to find practical uses for his fleet of 4-in.-high units. McLurkin envisions that his swarm could map terrain on Mars or search for survivors in the aftermath of an earthquake. "If you want to know what's inside a cave, you can send in an Army Ranger--or an army of robots," he says of his fleet's lifesaving potential. Rodney Brooks, director of M.I.T...
...gathers knowledge, it spreads it to its neighbors, and they spread it to their neighbors." Despite his success, McLurkin still gets a high-schoolish kick out of playing with his robots. Attendees at an iRobot holiday party two years ago were treated to the sounds of the first ever swarm orchestra. McLurkin had programmed the robots to arrange themselves into different instrument sections and play Christmas carols. What could be next? "A swarm marching band," he chuckles. "They'll play American standards." --By Carolina A. Miranda...
...locusts (which are a type of grasshopper), but for much of the Eastern U.S. this year, they're certainly a plague. Some cicadas appear almost every year, but the Brood X periodical cicada, as scientists call this variety , is the big one: the world's largest insect swarm. For the next five weeks, sidewalks will be littered with crunchy brown shells, ant treetops will be buzzing with an ear-splitting screech...