Skip to content

TechRepublic

  • Top Products
  • AI
  • Developer
  • Payroll
  • Security
  • Project Management
  • Accounting
  • CRM
  • Academy
Resources
  • TechRepublic Premium
  • TechRepublic Academy
  • Newsletters
  • Resource Library
  • Forums
  • Sponsored
Go Premium
Popular Topics
  • Top Products
  • AI
  • Developer
  • Payroll
  • Security
  • Project Management
  • Accounting
  • CRM
  • Academy
  • Project Management
  • Innovation
  • Cheat Sheets
  • Big Data
  • Tech Jobs
View All Topics
Go Premium
Hardware

Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

By Nick Heath February 19, 2015, 4:29 AM PST

Image
1
of 7

mit-csail-robot-garden0.jpg
mit-csail-robot-garden0.jpg
Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

In bloom

Image: Jason Dorfman/CSAIL

In bloom

Learning coding can be intimidating but researchers have brightened up the process by creating a programming playground using more than 100 origami robots that can crawl, swim and blossom like flowers.

The colourful landscape changes to reflect the action of distributed algorithms developed by the lab – opening flowers and changing the colour of LED lights inside blossoms.

The team from Massacheusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say the garden provides an visually appealing way to get more young students into programming, and presented their work in a paper recently submitted to the 2015 International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

Image: Jason Dorfman/CSAIL
csail-garden-2.jpg
csail-garden-2.jpg
Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

Shining a light

Image: CSAIL

Shining a light

“Students can see their commands running in a physical environment, which tangibly links their coding efforts to the real world,” says Lindsay Sanneman, who is lead author on the new paper. “It’s meant to be a launchpad for schools to demonstrate basic concepts about algorithms and programming.”

The garden features eight varieties of origami flowers – including lilies, tulips, and birds of paradise – which contain printable motors to allow them to blossom in various ways.

“Many elements of the garden can be made very quickly, including the pouch motors and the LED flowers,” researcher Jospeh DelPreto, said. “We’re hoping that rapid fabrication techniques will continue to improve to the point that something like this could be easily built in a standard classroom.”

Image: CSAIL
csail-garden-5.jpg
csail-garden-5.jpg
Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

Illuminating algorithms

Image: CSAIL

Illuminating algorithms

The garden is split into 16 tiles that are connected via Arduino microcontrollers and programmed via search algorithms.

Each algorithm explores space in different ways, with the outcome   reflected in the appearance of the garden, for instance a graph-colouring algorithm that ensures no two adjacent tiles ever share the same colour.

Image: CSAIL
csail-garden-6.jpg
csail-garden-6.jpg
Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

Controlling the garden

Image: CSAIL

Controlling the garden

The system can be managed via tablet or any Bluetooth-enabled device. Users can interact using a simple “control by click” interface, where they click on individual flowers, as well as a more advanced “control by code” option, where they add their own commands and execute sequences in real-time.

Image: CSAIL
sheep.jpg
sheep.jpg
Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

Woolly logic

Image: Jason Dorfman/CSAIL

Woolly logic

As well as flora, the garden also features a series of robot animals, such as this sheep, which was created using a traditional print-and-fold origami technique.

Image: Jason Dorfman/CSAIL
crane.jpg
crane.jpg
Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

Fowl play

Image: Jason Dorfman/CSAIL

Fowl play

Other creatures include these magnet-powered ducks, which started as two-dimensional paper prints before being heated in an oven to cause them to automatically fold into shape.

Image: Jason Dorfman/CSAIL
csail-garden-origami.jpg
csail-garden-origami.jpg
Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

Unfolding knowledge

Image: CSAIL

Unfolding knowledge

“The garden tests distributed algorithms for over 100 distinct robots, which gives us a very large-scale platform for experimentation,” says CSAIL director Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a co-author of the paper.

“At the same time, we hope that it also helps introduce students to topics like graph theory and networking in a way that’s both beautiful and engaging.”

Rus previously helped develop a distributed system of robots that watered, harvested, and took various metrics of an actual vegetable garden using complex motion-planning and object-recognition algorithms.

Image: CSAIL
  • Hardware
  • Account Information

    Share with Your Friends

    Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer’s playground

    Your email has been sent

Share: Photos: The robotic garden designed to be a programmer's playground
Image of Nick Heath
By Nick Heath
Nick Heath is a computer science student and was formerly a journalist at TechRepublic and ZDNet.
  • Account Information

    Contact Nick Heath

    Your message has been sent

  • |
  • See all of Nick's content

Daily Tech Insider

If you can only read one tech story a day, this is it.

TechRepublic TechRepublic
  • TechRepublic on Facebook
  • TechRepublic on X
  • TechRepublic on LinkedIn
  • TechRepublic on YouTube
  • TechRepublic on Pinterest
  • TechRepublic RSS
Services
  • About Us
  • Newsletters
  • RSS Feeds
  • Site Map
  • Site Help & Feedback
  • FAQ
  • Advertise
  • Do Not Sell My Information
  • Careers
Explore
  • Downloads
  • TechRepublic Forums
  • Meet the Team
  • TechRepublic Academy
  • TechRepublic Premium
  • Resource Library
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Editorial Policy
  • Legal Terms
  • Privacy Policy
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All rights reserved.
CLOSE

Create a TechRepublic Account

Get the web's best business technology news, tutorials, reviews, trends, and analysis—in your inbox. Let's start with the basics.

Already registered? Sign In
Use Facebook
Use Linkedin

* - indicates required fields

CLOSE

Sign in to TechRepublic

Not a member? Create an account
Use Facebook
Use Linkedin

Lost your password? Request a new password

CLOSE

Reset Password

Please enter your email adress. You will receive an email message with instructions on how to reset your password.

Check your email for a password reset link. If you didn't receive an email don't forgot to check your spam folder, otherwise contact support.

Back to login
1 Finish Profile
2 Newsletter Preferences
CLOSE

Welcome. Tell us a little bit about you.

This will help us provide you with customized content.

No thanks, continue without
1 Finish Profile
2 Newsletter Preferences
CLOSE

Want to receive more TechRepublic news?

Newsletter Name
Subscribe
Daily Tech Insider
Daily Tech Insider AU
TechRepublic UK
TechRepublic News and Special Offers
TechRepublic News and Special Offers International
Executive Briefing
Innovation Insider
Project Management Insider
Microsoft Weekly
Cloud Insider
Data Insider
Developer Insider
TechRepublic Premium
Apple Weekly
Cybersecurity Insider
Google Weekly
Toggle All
No thanks, continue without

You're All Set

Thanks for signing up! Keep an eye out for a confirmation email from our team. To ensure any newsletters you subscribed to hit your inbox, make sure to add [email protected] to your contacts list.

Back to Home Page
×