Dancing robots

A publication with experiments by Christian Scholz, then a postdoc at MSS and now at Universität Düsseldorf, appeared in Nature Communications:

“Biological organisms and artificial active particles self-organize into swarms and patterns. Open questions concern the design of emergent phenomena by choosing appropriate forms of activity and particle interactions. A particularly simple and versatile system are 3D-printed robots on a vibrating table that can perform self-propelled and self-spinning motion. Here we study a mixture of minimalistic clockwise and counter-clockwise rotating robots, called rotors. Our experiments show that rotors move collectively and exhibit super-diffusive interfacial motion and phase separate via spinodal decomposition. On long time scales, confinement favors symmetric demixing patterns. By mapping rotor motion on a Langevin equation with a constant driving torque and by comparison with computer simulations, we demonstrate that our macroscopic system is a form of active soft matter.”

Read about it here:

Rotating Robots Move Collectively and Self-Organize
C. Scholz, M. Engel, T. Pöschel
Nature Communications 9, 931 (2018)

Press coverage pro-physik.de (in German):
Roboter mit Fraktionszwang