The MOSS Kickstarter wants everyone to be able to build dynamic robots without coding or wires.
Modular Robotics is the company behind MOSS, their second robotics project after the successful Cubelets robots. The company does their own assembly and testing in a modest Colorado shop, and the tooling for this project is already complete.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modrobotics/moss-the-dynamic-robot-construction-kit
The innovation in MOSS is the cube shaped modules and color coding. You can build a structure like any good Lego fan, but for functionality the right cube faces need to be aligned. Battery modules have yellow faces indicating that they supply power to other modules. Blue faces send out data and green faces bring in signals. The pink faces indicate that the module can pass signal or data through the cube.
The cube design also allows for a unique construction – each vertex of the cube contains neodymium rare earth magnets, injection molded directly into the surface. Spheres placed between the corners are the connection method. One sphere connecting two cubes creates a ball joint and two spheres in line make a hinge. Three or four corners locked together will create a rigid structure between two cubes.
Currently MOSS has an app that allows users with the optional Bluetooth cubes to control their robots through a smartphone. Long term plans MOSS Flash and MOSS Scratch, two easy-to-use programming systems.
The MOSS Kickstarter is ambitious but there is a solid corporate structure in place to insure that the project is completed. The pledges have already burst through the funding goal and the funding period is set to end on December 11th. Watching this system come to life and begin implementation is going to be incredible.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modrobotics/moss-the-dynamic-robot-construction-kit