Most other modular robotic systems have servos and motors and arms and attachments in order to move modules into different places. With these cubes they wanted a simpler approach with fewer components and use what is called angular momentum. There’s a spinning mass inside the robots and they take the momentum from that mass to position the robots. The fact that this is inside enables them to use only one actuator.
Of course there’s the challenge of not breaking anything. Anytime you have cubes flipping on top of each other and changing places, electronic components can break. They took care of this by constructing a strong metallic frame for the cubes.
Could you imagine the possibilities? One of the commenters is pretty enthused:
This is pretty rad, too.
They aren’t anywhere near their potential in their current state, but imagine when these cubes are thoroughly scaled down and are more precise in their self-assembly actions; you’ll be able to go buy a bunch of cubes that can basically become anything you want: chairs, tables, desks, I don’t know, easels, different weight-training equipment (morphing between each as you finish the last machine), etc.
Sounds awesome to me.
