to construct a whole new universe,” Schweikardt said.
MOSS builds on what ModRobotics learned with Cubelets and is the result of about two-and-a-half years of work, Schweikardt said. Like its predecessor, the basic units of MOSS kits are little robotic cubes that snap together magnetically. But where Cubelets only worked with other Cubelets, MOSS modules can turn wheels or move arms that are included with kits. The most advanced modules use Bluetooth to connect to smartphones that can control vehicles.
Cubelets and MOSS share some features and a passing resemblance, but they are two different ways of thinking about robots and toys.
“It’s just a very different model of thinking about the world. On the one hand, you could say Cubelets are more advanced because they have a microcontroller inside every single piece and they talk to their neighbors digitally. MOSS doesn’t have a microcontroller in each piece, and it uses really simple analog communication,” Schweikardt said. “On the other hand… [with MOSS] you can have a lot more pieces working together in sync.”
With wheels and arms, a robot built from MOSS modules looks much more like a toy. Top-of-the-line kits include a tank turret that fires foam darts. The design specs for its cannon required it to be able to “hit cat-sized targets from 3 feet away,” Schweikardt said.
While the new design could appeal to more kids, ModRobotics also is shooting for the ‘It factor’ that will appeal to geeks/hipsters. During a presentation at the Defrag conference in Broomfield, Schweikardt said ModRobotics is reaching out to designers who are influential in the growing art or designer toy world. The first partnership is with Huck Gee, who designed the Shogun Tank model, which is the one that fires foam darts.
[For more on what designer toys are, check out this Wikipedia article and the Website for Kidrobot for some examples.]
Cubelets aren’t without charm, but they look like something that came out of a robotics lab, which they did. Schweikardt has a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he worked in the university’s Computational Design Laboratory. That’s where he met Mark Gross, his Ph.D. adviser and ModRobotics’ co-founder and research director.
Schweikardt said they wanted to take the advanced concepts they were working on and put them into physical form. Eventually, he and Gross made the first Cubelets.
Cubelets are a hit at science centers and in classrooms, but Schweikardt admits they “are a little abstract” and tend to appeal to kids, most often boys, who already show signs of growing into hackers or geeks.
“We realized that Cubelets have some problems for mass market adoption. It’s a great academic, theoretical robotics kit, but it’s expensive. And it’s made of a bunch of little cubes, which aren’t particularly evocative or good for telling stories or for the playing [many] kids like to do,” Schweikardt said.
Yet MOSS was designed to be accessible to a broader audience. “I think we’re about to hit a point where it’s no longer just boys,” Schweikardt said. “I think it’s a toy for everyone.”
ModRobotics is taking orders on Kickstarter now and will be delivering kits early next year. The company buys components from overseas, but they are assembled at its factory in Boulder.
“It’s weird because toys are made in China today, and if you were to pick a place to build toys in the United States, you wouldn’t pick a place like Boulder,” Schweikardt said.
Schweikardt outlined the decision to keep its factory in the U.S. in a blog post earlier this year. About six months in, he thinks it was the right call. Designers, engineers, and assemblers are all under the same roof, ensuring an easy flow of ideas among ModRobotics 40-some employees and simplifying quality control.
“It’s this wonderful closed loop that allows us to be really agile,” he said.
