{"id":144,"date":"2008-04-04T17:34:22","date_gmt":"2008-04-05T00:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/?p=144"},"modified":"2019-11-03T15:42:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T22:42:46","slug":"what-is-swarm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/2008\/04\/04\/what-is-swarm\/","title":{"rendered":"What is SWARM?"},"content":{"rendered":"

SWARM is a kinetic art work consisting of multiple semi-autonomous spherical robots (“Orbs”) that roll under their own power. Each has a spherical shell 30 inches in diameter: roughly waist high to an adult. Orb shells were computer-designed and cut from a flat plate of aluminum, then welded together to form an intricate sphere. Inside each Orb are batteries, motors to control speed and direction, as well as an audio system and color LED illumination, all under the command of a powerful on-board computer<\/a> with wireless connectivity to other Orbs and a central computer called the Mother Node<\/a>. Orbs roll without external wheels or actuators using the weight of the batteries as a ballast. Motors move the ballast off-center and cause the Orb to roll in that direction. Tilting the ballast away from the roll axis allows the Orb to steer.<\/p>\n

SWARM is built to explore the aesthetic possibilities and the emergent behavior of artificial systems. As a first step, Orbs are remote-controlled by human operators, but each Orb’s sounds and color illumination is algorithmically generated in response to location and motion. Each Orb has sophisticated navigational sensors including GPS, accelerometers, and solid-state gyroscopes. We are progressing towards sophisticated navigational algorithms, exactly like those used in spacecraft, that allow each Orb to determine its location and trajectory with high accuracy. From this, we can explore emergent and cooperative behavior like flocking as well as new possibilities in machine choreography. SWARM is not a simulation. SWARM is a platform for the art of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

We are grateful for funding and support from the following organizations: Burning Man<\/a>, the Coachella Festival<\/a>, and a talented group of volunteer artist-hackers.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Read More<\/span><\/h2>\n

Our home page, http:\/\/orbswarm.com<\/a>
\nwiki (the entire project is open-source) http:\/\/wiki.orbswarm.com<\/a>
\nblog http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SWARM is a kinetic art work consisting of multiple semi-autonomous spherical robots (“Orbs”) that roll under their own power. Each has a spherical shell 30 inches in diameter: roughly waist high to an adult. Orb shells were computer-designed and cut from a flat plate of aluminum, then welded together to form an intricate sphere. Inside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":97,"url":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/2007\/09\/09\/valley-wag-loves-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":144,"position":0},"title":"Valley Wag loves us!","date":"September 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00c2\u00a0\"One of the neatest things I have seen in the self-expressive miasma that is Burning Man, the countercultural arts festival here in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, has been The Orb Swarm, a group of spherical robots designed to roll around the playa and interact with participants with lights, motion and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Progress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":211,"url":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/2009\/04\/30\/event-swarm\/","url_meta":{"origin":144,"position":1},"title":"Event SWARM","date":"April 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"We've been lax about posting to the SWARM blog... SWARM gets out way more than you know! Last week the orbs were found dancing and flirting with the laptops at the\u00c2\u00a0Jaunty Jackalope Ubuntu Linux Release party!\u00c2\u00a0(Each orb runs ARM embedded Debian, pretty nerdy, huh?) This Thursday 4-30-09 a cadre of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Progress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":120,"url":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/2008\/03\/18\/upcoming-orb-rolls\/","url_meta":{"origin":144,"position":2},"title":"Upcoming Orb Rolls","date":"March 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I know we haven't been keeping you peeps updated nearly enough. Let me make it up to you... we're going to (at least) THREE shindigs soon! First up, we're going to Yuri's Night at NASA Ames (http:\/\/sf.yurisnight.net\/) Saturday April 12th from 2pm-2am!! They're so excited to see us that we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/2008\/05\/11\/burning-man-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":144,"position":3},"title":"Burning Man Update","date":"May 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The push for Autonomy continues! The plan is that SWARM will be dancing -on its own- at Burning Man at the end of August. That means GPS and inertial measurement systems will work with control software and dance software to.... well... DANCE! Here's an abbreviated update that we recently sent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Progress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":126,"url":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/2008\/03\/18\/yuris-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":144,"position":4},"title":"Yuri’s Night","date":"March 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"From Coreyfro: While NASA is still bragging about teleoperated robots such as DEXTRE, DARPA continues to push the boundaries on autonomous robotics. That's because NASA nerds (or, well, two of us here at Ames, and technically, I'm a contractor) make autonomous robots for fun in our free time! Auto choreographing,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":64,"url":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/2007\/06\/26\/orbs-a-go-go\/","url_meta":{"origin":144,"position":5},"title":"Orbs a Go-Go","date":"June 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Lisa, Michael and I have been working on building more orbs. Lisa and I have been working on an aluminum orb with all the welds on the inside; we set it down next to the one with the welds on the outside and there was no question which shows off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Progress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5dyZ-2k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.orbswarm.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}