society nano

Completed with a group for an AA DRL workshop focused on Arduino and coding, we were given the options to create robots with Machine-Human, Machine-Environment, and Machine-Machine interaction. We focused on the last, seeking inspiration from bio-luminescence, underwater creatures, and air balloons. Simplicity in concept was the key to complexity in this case, so we decided to employ the use of color sensing, specifically of red, green, and blue. Initially the goal was a flying robot, but with the time-frame of four weeks, it was more realistic to create the illusion of floating robots. We created a pulley system, with fishing wire attached to a continuous rotational servo. The robots were each comprised of a color sensor, red, green, and blue LEDs, a servo, battery, Arduino nanos, and breadboards. By setting up a higher population of robots, in our case, 18, we were able to identify reactions from a simple rule-set engaging in the emergence of patterns. At first, the robots detected a color and then emitted the same color of detection, but it resulted the eventual entropy of all robots encountering a single state (a single color). The system would then stop. We then turned to the more complex rule-set in which a single color detected converts to a different color (not that of which is detected). The result was a continuous system, with each moment having an overall idiosyncratic state. The complexity brought out from this rule-set resulted in an unpredictable organization.