Termes Project: robot constructors of the future

The first thing that comes to mind when you think about Termites is probably their destructive nature. Well, some scientists from Harvard have come up with a special robot that’s been designed to build stairs. Meant to work in a swarm, this robot (named Kali) is part of Harvard’s Termes project: robots inspired by termites. But instead of tearing down foundations, these robots are designed to construct structures instead.

In a demonstration video we see Kali the robot build a simple staircase in order to scale a wall of an unknown height, using experience to gauge how high it needs to go. If one robot can work on a structure like this so easily, it’s interesting to see how a whole swarm of similar robots functioning as a single unit. Hit the break to check out the demonstration video and see what the robot is capable of:

George Wong
Categories: Robots
Tags: Robot