
Tiny Robotic Bee Assembles Itself Like Pop-Up Book - owlmusic
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/robotic-bee/
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51Cards
Disregarding the engineering of the bee itself (which is equally amazing) the
fabrication process is brilliant. 2 things come to mind when I watch this. A.
I live in the future. B. There are people out there far more intelligent than
I. Consider my mind blown.

I wonder if they are working on a method to power the bee for actual flight.
Of course it has no control system either at this point. Off to read more.
Thanks to the poster for the link.

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Lost_BiomedE
Look up Erik Demaine, winner of a 2003 MacArthur genius award. You may have
seen him on the 'in between the folds' origami documentary. I have a feeling
that this process has a lot to do with his past work in origami and
algorithms.

His website: <http://erikdemaine.org>

Intro to folding: <http://erikdemaine.org/folding/>

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jamesbritt
Between the Folds is a great documentary. Amazing stuff, both artistically and
in engineering.

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alt_
Beautiful work. Although, I'd recommend just reading the press release[1]. It
is more in depth and better explains the accuracy and reliability they can
achieve.

I especially love seeing the bee in operation. Does anyone know by what
mechanism the motion is generated?

Edit: My best guess is piezoelectric actuators[2].

[1] [http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-
releases/pop-u...](http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/pop-
up-flying-robots)

[2] <http://micro.seas.harvard.edu/papers/Karpelson_ICRA09.pdf>

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glhaynes
At about 0:58 in the video linked from the Wired article, the narrator says
"and two piezoelectric inserts for actuation."

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alt_
Ah, yes. Thanks. I must have glossed over that when watching it.

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shtylman
The Bee didn't assemble itself, nor did it look robotic to me yet as it was
not even shown if it could fly or do other tasks. Very cool demo tho.

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MiguelHudnandez
The bee is incidental. The real "product" here is is the manufacturing
technique.

It has enough technology, primarily built-in circuitry to turn electric
current into motive force, to show that more complicated robotics are
possible.

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karolist
There's much leftover material that looks to be wasted. Is there any reason
the block has to be this size? Can't the margins be smaller?

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icegreentea
Looks like this configuration would allow the highest density of units to be
fabricated per given surface area. Notice that the hexagon is just barely
larger than the wing span where they approach each other. Can't do the math
now, but it's likely more space efficient to use the hexagon, than a plain
rectangle. You'll need to use one of those shapes so you can tessellate
without lose. The carbon fiber structure might not have to be continuous,
though I suspect that it might play a role in positioning during fabrication.

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brianbreslin
I'd love to see video of a swarm of these

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njharman
You won't, unless it's CGI.

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alan_cx
Well, you might. IIRC, there is another group who have those micro helicopters
working in a swarm like way. I assume convergence at some point in the not too
distant future.

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Kiro
I presume you mean the Nano Quadrotors:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4>

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dkkarthik
No, he meant the swarm of micro-helicopters as part of the same project.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8LkcgYRHdA>

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bo1024
Or both.

