Robotic Lego Furniture for your Living Room

Imagine being able to tell your living room to re-arrange itself into a dining room without having to lift a finger. That’s what the folks at the Biorobotics Lab in Switzerland are working on.

Meet the Roombots–building blocks that assemble and disassemble themselves to form different types of furniture.

You need an extra chair? How about you ask the table to come over and make itself into one. You need a footstool? Break down the coffee table. The bonus is that each individual piece has claws that anchor the pieces to pretty much anywhere–ceiling, wall, whatever, provided you have the connector pieces installed.

The idea behind the Roombots is to help people with mobility problems. Say someone needs to take some medicine at a specific time. The Roombots, assembled as a table, can bring the medicine to the person as demonstrated in BioRob Lab’s video below.

BioRob is still trying to figure out the best way to control the robots. They’d ideally be manipulated by voice, but likely will start out controlled by tablet apps. For more on the Roombots, check out the link here.

HT to Engadget for the lead.