University of Vermont’s Josh Bongard just won the 2007 TR35 Young Innovator award for his self-modeling robots. His starfish can learn how to walk with no programming at all, just knowing the properties of their parts. The results —as you will see in the video after the jump—are quite pathetic to watch, but I am sure that impression will change when they evolve into giant machines to kill us all.
The interesting part —yes, there is one— of these robots is how they can learn to walk again if one of the limbs break. Like the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, but less obnoxious. [WaziWazi]
