MIT research team builds blocks that can jump, leap, roll and join

M-Blocks can jump and snap into place all by themselves. — Jason Dorfman/MIT CSAIL

Following up on a self-assembling robot project that kicked off in 2013, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have given these climbing, leaping and rolling M-Blocks the ability to communicate with one another.

Six years after researchers at MIT began developing self-assembling blocks – "M-Blocks" – that could climb onto and around one another, jump through the air, and roll across the ground, the team announced that they have succeeded in giving the devices the ability to communicate with one another using a "barcode-like" method.