I always pictured the future, as a kid, with outrageous technology that was everywhere. Like the movie premier screen that showed Jaws 19, directed by Max Spielberg no less, in Back to the future 2 or the little random robots that scurry around in every Star Wars big city scene ever made. Or even the animated news papers and magazines that littered the streets in Minority Report. Well this new development from MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory and ARES Lab (Aerospace Robotics and Embedded Systems Laboratory) will bring you right back to the wonders born out of your childhood mind. The project is called ‘Flyfire’, which uses a swarm of micro-bots or rather micro-helicopters to create a huge 3d display in an open environment. These helicopters are self-organizing and each is equipped with tiny LED’s that act as a smart pixel and when combined can create huge 3D images and shapes that can also morph into a 2D and vice-versa in real time. All of these micro-copters act on the initial programming that was entered in to give them a specific flight pattern and color designation to perform in synchronization. As an example, imagine you’re going to the new drive-in and you see a massive swarm of light flying around that designates where you’re supposed to go to watch the movie you and your date want to see. As soon as you arrive, the swarm morphs into product advertising for soda, popcorn, etc. Then at the movies starting time the swarm combines to form a huge screen that plays the movie. Now that’s something we’ve all dreamt about that the future would have in it. A video of these micro-copters in a simulated environment:
Eavesdropper