Final Project Research · Week 1 · HTMAA 2025

Final Project Concept: The Birth of Robots

"Cell division meets creature robotics."

Initial Concept

Two parent spheres ("cells") wander around in their environment. When they collide and both detect contact (they "agree"), one opens and a baby robot emerges ("comes from old cells"). After birth, the parent may change state—becoming slow, scarred, or even "dying" (stopping), while the baby scurries away to begin its own journey.

Simulation demonstrating the core behavior of cell collision and reproduction

Extended demonstration of the creature robotics concept

This concept explores the intersection of biological reproduction processes and autonomous robotics, creating a narrative that bridges natural phenomena with technological systems.

Evolution of the Idea

This is a pure art project so far, so don't ask me any practical use right now. I DUNNO! I try to think about the lives of robots by learning about the natural birth process.

Physical Game of Life setup showing water interaction — The idea is to design a parent robot with a baby robot inside its body. Under certain conditions, the baby robot will come out of the parent robot and 'grow up' on its own (learn to navigate and get the full speed after being familiar with the environment). The original setup is sad for the parent robot, as you can see, it will die after giving birth.

Physical Game of Life showing object interaction — Latest version where the parent robot stays alive after giving birth.

Reference image — But the latest version is that the parent robot is still alive after giving birth to the robot. It can vibrate (with a tiny vibration motor) and some TBD action. I've been thinking for a long time to figure out the ways of opening, but those opening mechanisms are all too complicated. Recently, I was inspired by the animal giving birth process. The opening can be soft (made by elastic silicon, maybe), and the only thing is to push the baby robot and make it go through the soft gap.