Technology (research).

0 Comments | Report Newsmagazine, The, October, 2000 | by Celeste McGovern

A computer programmed to follow the rules of evolution has for the first time designed and manufactured simple, mobile robots, the Associated Press reported August 50. Brandeis University computer scientists Jordan Pollack and Hod Lipson in Waltham, Massachusetts, programmed a computer to use bars, actuators, ball joints, motors and circuits to design a locomotive robot.

The computer created several models, many of which were discarded, and in the end produced three models using a prototyping machine. The little white robots were able to perform ratcheting, rolling and swimming motions. Humans intervened only to insert the motors into the plastic parts spit out by the prototyping machine.