The Press

• TROJAN VISION: CU@USC Interview with Wei-Min Shen, October 20, 2011.
  
• NEWSWEEK: This Is Your Future: Modular Robots, March 13, 2011.
  
• SCIENCE CHANNEL: Sci Fi Science: Superbot, August 24, 2010.
  
• CHINESE NEWS: SuperBots, July 14, 2009.
  
• NEW SCIENTIST: Sound Bites - Quote from Wei-Min Shen on reconfiguration, March 31, 2009.
  
• NEW SCIENTIST: Sound Bites - Quote from Wei-Min Shen on reconfiguration, March 31, 2009.
  
• NEW YORK TIMES: Peter Will and Wei-Min Shen on robotics research at USC, March 27, 2009.
  
• BBC: BBC Visions Of The Future with SuperBot, January 01, 2008.
  
• LA18 NEWS: SuperBot, May 22, 2007.
  
• FOX NEWS: Superbot, April 29, 2007.
  
• CNN NEWS: Robotics discovers its soft side, April 10, 2007.
  
• NEW YORK TIMES: Robots That Slink and Squirm, March 27, 2007.
  
• SCIENCE DAILY: Scientists Create Autonomous Robots That Can Stand, Crawl, Wiggle And Even Roll, February 22, 2007.
  
• ABC NEWS: Modular reconfigurable robots, July 17, 2006.
  
• DISCOVERY CHANNEL: Video from Beyond Tomorrow -- and writeup, November, 2005.
  
• NEW SCIENTIST: The replicator: create your own body double, June 11, 2005.
  
• SLASHDOT: Robotic Space Workers of the Future, May 29, 2004. Blurb refers to Technology Trends and Nature articles below.
  
• ROLAND PIQUEPAILLE'S TECHNOLOGY TRENDS: Robotic Space Workers of the Future, May 29, 2004.
  
• NATURE: Puckish Robots Pull Together, May 28, 2004.
  
• THE LONDON TIMES - Higher Education Supplement: Robot team shifts into spider or snake on cue from 'hormone', May 7, 2004.
  
• WORLD DAILY NEWSPAPER, Phi Kappa Phi Awards in Self-Reconfigurable Robots (in Chinese), May 2003.
  
• SCIENCE DAILY: Robot Space Cowboys: A Unique Design For Self-Organizing Robots Controlled By "Hormonal" Software Is Moving Toward Space, December 9, 2002.
  
• EDMONTON JOURNAL: Morphing Bot: a Real-Life Transformer, 7/31/2002.
  
• CALGARY HERALD: Self-shaping bot revels in tight spots, 07/31/2002.
  
• SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING NEWS, Digital Hormones for Robots (www.newscientist.com) April 13, 2001.
  
• WORLD DAILY NEWSPAPER, Leading Research in Self-Reconfigurable Robots (in Chinese), March 2001.
  
• SCIENCE DAILY: Robo Lego: Modular Robotic Units Designed To Meld Together For Search And Rescue, December 22, 2000.
  
• CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, Robot soccer pits machines against machines, July 29, 1998.
  
• SCIENCE Magazine, RoboCup Soccer Match is a Challenge for Silicon Rookies, 277, 1997.
  
• CNN, Discovery, ABC, Soccer Robots Competition, August 1997.
  
• SPIEGEL (in German), RoboCup Dreamteam, 33, August 1997.
  
• LOS ANGELES TIMES, Science's Dream Team, November 2, 1997.
  
• LOS ANGELES TIMES, Playing for Robo Keeper, August 18, 1997.
  
• BYTE, Rasmus, D. W.  Integrating distributed information. State of the Art. November 1991.
  
• READING IN MACHINE LEARNING, Introduction to Machine Discovery, edited by J. Shavlik and T. Dietterich, Published by Morgan Kaufmann. 1990.
  
• USC CHRONICLE, Hunches By Design (about the data mining system DataCrystal), October 1997.
  
• USC CHRONICLE, They Came, They Scanned and They Conquered, USC Chronicle, September, 1997.
  
• USC CHRONICLE, A Robotic Soccer Roust (about the Dreamteam), USC Chronicle, September 1997.
  
• PBS Scientific American Frontier (with Alan Alda), October 1996.
  
• USC CHRONICLE, The Little Robot that Could (about the Yoda robot), USC Chronicle, September 1996.
  
• YODA Wins Silver Medal.
• ISI News Article
  
• YODA on CNN (3/9/97). 
• YODA on PBS (4/9/97).

Detailed
Highlights

Science Channel (August 24, 2010)
Chinese News Publication (July 14, 2009)
BBC Visions Of The Future with SuperBot (January 01, 2008)
LA18 News on SuperBot (May 22, 2007)
Fox News on SuperBot (April 29, 2007)
CNN News on Soft and Morphing Robots (April 10, 2007)
New York Times (Science Section) (March 27, 2007)

ABC News (July 17, 2006)

Discovery Channel News (May 24, 2006)
An article that summarizes the movie below.
 

Beyond Tomorrow Discovery Channel (November 2005)
A short movie about the earlier prototypes of SuperBot modules and their capabilities illustrated through CONRO examples.
 

ScienceDude (December 28th, 2005)
Dr. Peter Will appeared on the "Science and Society" radio show to talk about micro-robots, nano-robots and robots whose pieces can be reconfigured. He also will discuss the SuperBot Project, an effort to produce modular robots that can run and climb and, possibly, assist in search-and-rescue operations.
 

New Scientist (June 11th, 2005)
The replicator: create your own body double A story about replication and telepresence using modular, cell-like robots. We are in the boxed featurette on page 4.
 

 (May 28th, 2004)
Puckish Robots Pull Together:  A story about prototype robots which practice docking maneuvers on an air hockey table was explained by Wei-Min Shen of USC's Viterbi School of Engineering. Given the hazards of human space travel, Shen believes robots are the best bet for building structures in space. "Assembly performed by astronauts would be too expensive and risky," he said. Shen's group is collaborating with NASA to develop intelligent robotic systems that can coordinate their own activities, requiring less human control and monitoring.  (Summary: Eric Mankin - ISI).
 

 (August 8th, 2003, download PDF): The work of USC School of Engineering robotics experts Wei-Min Shen and Peter Will is described in detail in a long report in the August 8 issue on "Shape Shifting Robots."  Will and Shen's CONRO robots "have an especially spectacular ability to adapt on the fly.... 'The surprise in people's eyes when they see this is amazing,' Will says. 'When the thing gets up and walks all your human feelings about robots come out. Some people cheer for it, other people find it scary.' CONRO's adaptability comes from an innovative, decentralized control system, analogous to biological hormones. 'In the body, the same signal causes your hand to wave, your mouth to open and your legs to move,' explains Shen. Similarly in a CONRO robot, a module's reaction to signals (or 'hormones') from other modules depends on its current function....In the future, modular robots may be used to build power stations in space (a project the CONRO team is working on) or conduct search and rescue operations.
 

1997 World Cup Robot Soccer Competition in Nagoya, Japan.
 

The IEEE Computational Intelligence Bulletin
 

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