I, scientist with Balazs Kegl Baudouin Saintyves
Sep 16, 2024
Baudouin Saintyves is a creative force as an artist, physicist, and roboticist at the University of Chicago, known for pioneering Granulobots—motorized aggregates that mimic self-organization. The conversation dives into the mind-bending world of soft and swarm robotics, exploring how local interactions create complex behaviors. Baudouin shares insights on decision-making in robot swarms, the balance between top-down design and bottom-up emergence, and how his art informs scientific inquiry, making for an exhilarating blend of science and creativity.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Soft And Distributed Robotics Enable Emergent Adaptability
- Soft and distributed robotics trade deterministic kinematic control for emergent adaptability through compliance and local interactions.
- This lets simpler hardware achieve robustness in unstructured environments by shifting complexity into collective physics.
Building Granulobots From Motorized Grains
- Baudouin built motorized two-wheeled 'granulobots' with magnets to test material-like reconfiguration.
- He describes them as motorized grains that self-assemble, detach, and reconfigure like wet sand under simple local control.
Local Oscillators Create Global Modes
- Local oscillator-like controllers produce global self-organization such as synchronization and traveling waves.
- Changing one unit's oscillation can switch collective modes and enable locomotion without centralized commands.