We wanted to create a swarm of artistic robots, ones that could create a funky pattern without external control over their artistic potential. We did this by creating a code which impacted the robots motor abilities when presented with different colours. By randomly placing coloured paper over a white sheet of paper, the robots will move in different patterns creating a very beautifully drawn masterpiece, rivalled only by the works of Picasso.

We were mainly inspired by mother nature herself. The dung beetle, one of nature’s most curious animals, was our initial inspiration. We wanted to replicated the mechanic in which the dung beetle pushes a load much heavier than itself, however we realised this was inapplicable to a group of swarm robots. So we looked at other animals, including ants and pandas, both of which leave pheromone trails which act as indicators for other members of the swarm about various things, such as a viable food source, danger and rival clans. We realised that if we used coloured pens, our robots could follow these pseudo-pheromone trails, mimicking the real life animals.