"Mommy Robot"

'Mommy Robot' Can Build and Test its Own Babies

Mariella Moon | August 14, 2015

A University of Cambridge team of researchers has created a "mother robot" capable of giving birth to -- or more correctly, building its own -- baby cube-bots. The team conducted five rounds of experiments, wherein it assembled 10 pint-sized machine children per generation with a motor and one to five plastic cubes. It then observed how fast they moved, as well as how far they got, all without human intervention. Momma bot left the fastest ones untouched, while "mutation and crossover were introduced" in the slower robo-kids for the next generation. By the time it got to the last batch, the small machines moved twice as fast as the fastest first-gen baby bots.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/14/university-of-cambride-mother-robot/

<more at http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/14/university-of-cambride-mother-robot/; related links: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/on-the-origin-of-robot-species (On the origin of (robot) species. August 12, 2015) and http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/12/disney-research-beachbot-art/ (Disney's Beachbot is an artistic robot turtle that can draw in the sand. January 12, 2015)>