If you haven’t checked out these funny looking really efficient vibrobots (which sounds funny too), make sure you do. They seems to run primarily on solar power and you can do a lot with it. (hopefully… )

In the current issue of MAKE (Vol. 8), I have a piece on Pummers, a type of solar-powered robotic plant life. I’ve known about Pummers for years, but my inspiration for doing the MAKE piece was finding Zach Debord’s gorgeous Pummer set on Flickr. Being an artist and designer, Zach understands the value of making miniature robots that are as beautiful as they are functional. Mark Tilden, the “Big God” of BEAM robotics, has a wonderful adage that a human is a way that a robot makes another robot. One “evolutionary strategy” here is centered on aesthetics. Aesthetics drive interest. The Pummer piece is a prime example. I saw Zach’s bots, I was wowed by their beautiful designs, and wanted others to see them. The piece got published, and now, if you search on Pummer in the MAKE Flickr pool, you see other people are making them. The robots are replicating themselves.

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