uncripple
Canadian artist Max Dean, Matt Donovan and Cornell University’s robotics engineer Raffaello D’Andrea (also known for his involvement in the RoboCup Soccer Championships) and his former student Steve Lowe have developed an artistic project featuring a robotic chair, which falls apart and then autonomously reassembles itself. The movie has become an online hit.
While interesting in itself, a bit of mindstretching on the theme of self-repair and self-assembly reveals a manifold of opportunities, some of which have technological developments underway. At a more abstract level, it all boils down to moving from a crippled state back to a normal state, via autonomous, intelligent and pro-active problemsolving. Various scenarios can be envisaged in which such an ability (intentionally designed) might be of practical use. Let’s shift contexts and think about what it could mean:
think virtual: information that rearranges itself depending on the needs of the situation, self-healing hard- & software (link),
think small: remember Eric Drexler’s nanovisions including self-assembly (see also his website)
think practical: imagine driving through your carwash after an accident and watching your car un-(c)ripple, self-cleaning tissues and other materials (cf. self-cleaning windows)
think health: self-healing skin/organs, self-repairing protheses, …
think politics: …
Image courtesy of Cornell University.
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