Watch Flying Robots Construct A Rudimentary Grid

We don’t know whether a team of quadrotors independently building a basic grid is cause for alarm or celebration, probably a little of both. Quentin Lindsey, Daniel Mellinger, and Vijay Kumar of the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania devised these flying robots to build simple cubic structures, ones of no great artistic merit (except if you’re a Sol Lewitt fan), but this is, of course, just the beginning.

What it means for construction and architecture we can only wait and see, as it depends what sort of investment they’ll get and who’ll be driving the research. As a means of basic structure assembly in extreme conditions, they could very well come in handy, but more complex designs might be beyond them. They could, however, be used to build temporary structures, prefabricated buildings, steel beam skyscraper skeletons, or even art installations, depending on how they work on a larger scale. In any case, it’s an impressive move towards robotic-aided construction. In the future, they may be building your house.