Chapter 15
Robotics and Physical Computing
Chapter 15 describes current uses of robotics and physical computing technologies in architectural design, visual representation, and manufacturing. Industrial robots, autonomous robots, microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators provide novel methods for the fabrication and assembly of modular architectural systems, sensing data, and creating visualizations. These tools also open up opportunities to design kinetic systems that are responsive and interactive, creating a shift from static to dynamic environments. Through the use of robotics and physical computing, experimental drawings that are based in automation are emerging as methods for creating geometric patterns and formal and spatial representations, by conflating the use of traditional drawing instruments with mechanical devices that are computationally controlled.
15.1 Robotics
In 1948, the American mathematician Norbert Weiner coined the term cybernetics, from the Greek word kybernetes...