Last spring, New York University art student Kacie Kinzer conducted an experiment: Out of cardboard, she built a little robot with a smiley face. This robot, called the Tweenbot, had one ability: It moved forward – nothing more, nothing less. Kinzer took this little fellow to Central ParkWashington Square Park, attached a little flag with its indended destination (the other end of the park), and released it.

What happened? Well, the robot did what it could do: move forward; and since it could move only forward, it got stuck a lot – in pavement cracks, on grass, or driving into trees. But whenever that happened, a friendly person came by, and put the Tweenbot back on its path. Some of the helpers corrected its course by just nudging it with their foot, while others went to great lengths to free the robot when it got stuck under a park bench.

Finally the little robot arrived safely at the other end of the park. Remember: This was in New York, whose residents are not known for their helpfulness. And the outcome wasn’t an outlier either: Kinzer repeated the experiment several times, and all of those re-runs were successful. Read the rest of this entry »