Many scientists study collective behavior in nature at a wide range of scales; from how cells cooperate to the interaction of many individuals in ant colonies, fish schools, and even human crowds. Low-cost robot swarm systems, such as the Kilobots, can allow life scientists to investigate fundamental biological design principles of interest in a controlled but still tangible synthetic context. This educational grant is developing a two-week hands-on workshop to teach life scientists how to program collective robotics systems and how to use them in their research and classroom teaching to gain insight in their study of collective behavior.
