It's more of a prospective product than a hack, but it is still incredibly interesting and has many implications. For one, it gives users a creative and easy way to create an immersive environment. Coupled with RC helicopters and now quadcopters that are beginning to fill the skies we can only imagine the type of images and ideas that are to come.
Speaking of quadcopters, I first saw this ball camera story on BLDG BLOG, which covers the many otherwise untold stories concerning architecture and infrastructure. It also featured a story on semi-autonomous quadcopter robots that assembled an entire structure out of polystyrene foam bricks.
What will be really interesting is when these robotic worker bees are teamed up with semi-self-assembling smart-building material. Watching the robotic quadcopters assemble the building is amazing, but the bricks are free standing and the final outcome looks precarious. What if, inside each brick was a system to make minor adjustments in the brick's position and then lock it into place? What if through each brick ran conduits for power and LAN cables? We'll look at this in some depth in our next post - self-assembling modular construction.
