Patent ID: 7747352

Claim:
A trainable modular robot comprising: one or more active modules and one or more passive modules, each of said active and each of said passive modules consisting of a body member and one or more fixed fasteners for rigidly attaching said body member to the body member of one or more other modules to form a rigid articulated structure, each of said passive modules used to form said rigid articulated structure being selected from a collection of passive modules of different shapes including straight, T-shaped, L-shaped or shaped with at least one 108 degree bend such that said rigid articulated structure has a cubic or hexagonal crystalline geometry, each of said active modules further comprising, in combination, a movable fastener for movably attaching said body member to a further module not included in said rigid articulated structure to form a combined structure that can be manually reshaped, a position sensor for acquiring and storing position data specifying a sequence of positions assumed by said further module as said combined structure is manually reshaped, and a controllable drive motor coupled to said movable fastener for moving said further module relative to said rigid articulated structure in accordance with said stored position data.