Robohub.org
 

Cubelets are growing up as Moss


by
07 November 2013



share this:

Three years after their successful Cubelets, Modular Robotics launched a new kickstarter today for Moss. It’s like Cubelets just got clever and maybe a little bit more fashionable too. Moss is a dynamic robot construction kit and by the time you read this, the kickstarter will be well over the target of $100,000.  This is a loyalty and publicity kickstarter, not a plea for funding to get a prototype off the ground!Moss blocks have magnetic ball joints to connect to each other – with one connection you have a universal joint, with two a hinge and with four you have a rigid construction. All the power and data pass through a single central button. No wires, no coding and very fast construction with a range of additional shapes to play with. Like cubelets, different colored cubes will have different features, like motor blocks, sensing and communication modules. There’s a bluetooth block so that you can control your creations from your phone.

https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/703495/video-308396-h264_high.mp4

“It’s just a very different model of thinking about the world. On the one hand, you could say Cubelets are more advanced because they have a microcontroller inside every single piece and they talk to their neighbors digitally. MOSS doesn’t have a microcontroller in each piece, and it uses really simple analog communication,” Schweikardt said. “On the other hand… [with MOSS] you can have a lot more pieces working together in sync.”

Boulder based Modular Robotics started off as Roblocks with NSF seed funding for educational robotics and small business development. Since then, they’ve picked up a decent Series A round of $3 million from Foundry Group (Brad Feld). And, since shipping for Cubelets started in 2011, the Modular Robotics team have been working on new things. An unexpected bonus of their NSF SBIR grant was a post-doc scholarship. This allowed Eric Schweikardt to hire Jon Hiller.

“When I was a post-doc at the Cornell Computational Synthesis lab (now called the Cornell Creative Machines Lab), Jon was a PhD student. Even in a world-class lab filled with the smartest people you’ve met, Jon stood out. He was working on discrete 3D printing, figuring out how to deposit tiny beads of material in dense grids to create forms with variable material properties. He built apparatus, wrote code, ran 3D simulations, and finished some super cool research. “

“Under normal circumstances, there’d be no way that a little, underfunded startup like Modular Robotics in 2010 could embark on the design of a second, totally unique robot project. But when Jon came out to join us, much of the work on commercializing Cubelets was complete. Since Jon was basically “free” to Modular Robotics, we decided that we should make the most of this bonus: we’d put him to work on a brand new something. Here we are, a couple of years later.”

Modular Robotics have also teamed up with SF based artist Huck Gee to create a Shogun Tank, a samurai-inspired robot tank complete with missile turret. “MOSS in its early prototypes was just an abstract building kit,” Schweikardt says. “It probably wouldn’t have appealed to me as a kid because I liked enacting these big battles and narratives with my toys.” Modular Robotics teamed up with Paul Budnitz, founder of KidRobot, to find artists who’d be interested in designing exclusive MOSS models. Schweikardt says Huck Gee is the first of many to come.

The design brief for the tank was to shoot a NERF type missile 3 feet with sufficient accuracy “to hit a cat sized target. Meow.” No real cats were harmed in the making of this product, as far as I’m aware. And how clever is this? Prepackaged image with all the products and prices! If you want to have a successful kickstarter, study successful campaigns. Like this one.

 



tags: ,


Andra Keay is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, founder of Women in Robotics and is a mentor, investor and advisor to startups, accelerators and think tanks, with a strong interest in commercializing socially positive robotics and AI.
Andra Keay is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, founder of Women in Robotics and is a mentor, investor and advisor to startups, accelerators and think tanks, with a strong interest in commercializing socially positive robotics and AI.





Related posts :



Robot Talk Episode 120 – Evolving robots to explore other planets, with Emma Hart

  09 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Emma Hart from Edinburgh Napier University about algorithms that 'evolve' better robot designs and control systems.

Robot Talk Episode 119 – Robotics for small manufacturers, with Will Kinghorn

  02 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Will Kinghorn from Made Smarter about how to increase adoption of new tech by small manufacturers.

Multi-agent path finding in continuous environments

  01 May 2025
How can a group of agents minimise their journey length whilst avoiding collisions?

Interview with Yuki Mitsufuji: Improving AI image generation

  29 Apr 2025
Find out about two pieces of research tackling different aspects of image generation.

Robot Talk Episode 118 – Soft robotics and electronic skin, with Miranda Lowther

  25 Apr 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Miranda Lowther from the University of Bristol about soft, sensitive electronic skin for prosthetic limbs.

Interview with Amina Mević: Machine learning applied to semiconductor manufacturing

  17 Apr 2025
Find out how Amina is using machine learning to develop an explainable multi-output virtual metrology system.

Robot Talk Episode 117 – Robots in orbit, with Jeremy Hadall

  11 Apr 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Jeremy Hadall from the Satellite Applications Catapult about robotic systems for in-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing.

Robot Talk Episode 116 – Evolved behaviour for robot teams, with Tanja Kaiser

  04 Apr 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Tanja Katharina Kaiser from the University of Technology Nuremberg about how applying evolutionary principles can help robot teams make better decisions.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence