BitDrones OS A Programmable Matter System

Abstract

This work presents the BitDrones System, a platform for developing interactive 3D tangible user interface applications. This system is a first step towards interactive self-levitating programmable matter. Although there have been many attempts to create programmable matter, BitDrones represents a unique contribution where the voxels are self-levitating, and completely controllable in 3D, all while still allowing user interactions. Several generations of BitDrones units are presented, beginning with BitDrones that are single self-levitating pixels and moving to fully graspable 3D tangible voxels. Each BitDrone consists of a 3D printed wireframe cube with RGB LEDs mounted on a nano-quadcopter, which allows it to self-levitate. Groups of BitDrones are controllable directly by the user through a series of unimanual, bimanual, gestural, and embodied controller interactions. Interactions such as Touch and Drag are possible simply by grasping and moving the BitDrones. Gestural interactions such as Point and Click allow the user to manipulate remote BitDrones. Also described are several application scenarios that are possible with the BitDrones system. These include a 3D Canvas, a tangible Grid, an animation recording and playback, and an embodied controller designed to operate as Flying LEGO Bricks.