Claytronics
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Claytronics is a term with multiple meanings.
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[edit] Programmable Matter
"Claytronics" is an emerging field of engineering concerning reconfigurable nanoscale robots ('claytronic atoms', or catoms) designed to form much larger scale machines or mechanisms. Also known as "programmable matter", the catoms will be sub-millimeter computers that will eventually have the ability to move around, communicate with each others, change color, and electrostatically connect to other catoms to form different shapes. The forms made up of catoms could morph into nearly any object, even replicas of human beings for virtual meetings.
Claytronics technology is currently being researched by Professor Seth Goldstein and Professor Todd C. Mowry at Carnegie Mellon University, which is where the term was coined. According to Carnegie Mellon's Synthetic Reality Project personnel, claytronics are described as "An ensemble of material that contains sufficient local computation, actuation, storage, energy, sensing, and communication" which can be programmed to form interesting dynamic shapes and configurations.
[edit] Claytronics and Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics
Claytronics is a part of the research field called Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics which aims to create this kinds of systems at many different scales.
[edit] Clay Art Caricatures
Claytronics is also the name given to one-inch clay caricatures of public figures by artist Charuvi Agrawal [1]. She started building her claytronics in 1996 using self hardening clay. Since then, a large patron base has been built upon this art form in India as well as internationally. In September 2007, at the 60 Anniversary of Indian Independence, Coca-Cola Company awarded Charuvi an India Extraordinaire award for her claytronics series in New York.
[edit] In Popular Culture
The Star Trek: Destiny novel trilogy featured an alien species called the Caeliar. Their bodies are not made of normal organic matter as with most other beings, but of claytronic atoms, which allow them to reshape their surroundings from a cloud of generic matter, with a mere thought. The Caeliar have no need for farming, agriculture, animal husbandry, or economics, due to their needs being met via manipulation of catoms.
In Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, a race of artificial and human-looking organisms referred to as replicators, is built of inorganic nano-machines instead of human cells, and is able to fuse with and separate from any mass made of the same material.
The movie "Transformers 2 - Revenge of the fallen" shows a robot (Decepticon) that infiltrates a military facility as a stream of catoms and joins together to form the robot, once inside.
[edit] External links
- Intel sees future with shape-shifting humanoid robots
- The Synthetic Reality Project at Carnegie Mellon
- "'Programmable matter' one day could transform itself into all kinds of look-alikes" in the Post-Gazette
- "'Teleporting' over the internet" on BBC
- "Claytronics and the Pario World" on WorldChanging
- A demo video of Catoms in action
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