If faced with the choice of sending a swarm of full-sized, distinct robots to space, or a large crew of smaller robotic modules, you might want to enlist the latter. Modular robots, like those depicted in films such as "Big Hero 6," hold a special type of promise for their self-assembling and reconfiguring abilities. But for all of the ambitious desire for fast, reliable deployment in domains extending to space exploration, search and rescue, and shape-shifting, modular robots built to date are still a little clunky. They're typically built from a menagerie of large, expensive motors to facilitate movement, calling for a much-needed focus on more scalable architectures -- both up in quantity and down in size. Scientists from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) called on electromagnetism -- electromagnetic fields generated by the movement of electric current -- to avoid the usual stuffing of bulky and expensive actuators into individual blocks.

Scientists from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory ( CSAIL) and the University of Calgary have developed a modular robot system that can morph into different shapes. ElectroVoxels don't have any motors or moving parts. Instead, they use electromagnets to shift around each other. Each edge of an ElectroVoxel cube is an electromagnetic ferrite core wrapped with copper wire. The length of each ElectroVoxel side is around 60 millimeters.