Put 200 Robots On Your Finger

Posted 6 Jun 2006 at 14:04 UTC by Rog-a-matic

Dartmouth College researchers used MEMSCAP's MEMS-based (MicroElectroMechanical System) MUMPS (Multi-User MEMS Processes Service) prototyping service to build a fleet of tiny robots. With two actuators and a whopping 2 bits of memory, they can crawl at the fantastic speed of 100 microns per second on the specially designed grid plate, and are capable of pushing a speck of dust. PDF describing the advancement: http://www.memscap.com/05-06-2006-1.pdf

Pull my finger!, posted 6 Jun 2006 at 15:46 UTC by The Swirling Brain » (Master)

What would 200 robots be doing on your finger?

I think that these robots might be the same ones that were described earlier that need an electrified plate to power them on. And then, they are not really robots at all but tiny remote control vehicles. On your finger they wouldn't be electrified at all so they'd be dead useless pieces of metal. So, can you really call them robots on your finger? Not really. Not unless you were being electrified at the moment and when that happens, your finger transforms into a piece of char rather quickly. Also, the little guys would needs some smarts to become autonomous robots and not RC, which is very unlikely to happen in their current configuration even with high voltage mutation evolution, which I don't believe can happen anyway. But, even if it could, then only for a brief period of time, like miliseconds, could you really call them robots on your finger as the tiny lumps of metal mutate into bubbling brains and then to slag and as your fingers mutate away from fingers to bubbling bio-matter and then into char. Still highly unlikely, but at that point, perhaps, and a very unlikely perhaps, just an instant before bio-plasma and metalic vaporous slag then, and only then during that singularity of time, then, you might, and that's a big debatable "might," be able to call them robots on your finger. ...but I digress.

Could be possible someday..., posted 7 Jun 2006 at 18:27 UTC by reed » (Apprentice)

I doubt they need that much electricity. Maybe they could convert it from heat on your finger, or a bit of electricity on your skin. Or chemically convert it from ambient materials, or use a very small checmical store (battery). These are all future possabilities though, the technology for these thnigs would hav eto be developed and miniaturized (if possible).