Robotic Toy Blocks Beautiful Enough For Design Nerds

Using a few dozen blocks, the assembled toys can move in mysterious ways.

[image error]

Robotic blocks are usually the province of computer geeks, but two Norwegian design students took it upon themselves to change that for a recent class project. [vimeo 12454254:]

Lars Marcus Vedeler and Ola Vågsholm's toy kit, dubbed Olars, was inspired by a project in the 1990s by Karl Sims, "Evolved Virtual Creatures," which simulated the evolution of dozens of wriggling creatures, whose body parts were no more than...