`Roombots` to serve you as table, chair

London: You have seen robots doing household chores. Now meet robotic blocks that can assemble on your demand to turn into a table, chair or stool! Billed as “roombots”, these robotic furniture can self assemble into various shapes. “Each “roombot” is a completely independent unit - a 9-inch-long block that resembles a pair of dice joined together,” said Massimo Vespignani from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. It contains a battery and three small motors that allow it to move in three different dimensions. The “roombot” also has a set of retractable claws so it can hook onto other bots to create bigger structures, or attach onto connectors in its environment, media reports said. “The `roombot` can move along a grid of tracks on the floor or wall and connect to other blocks, or the blocks can disconnect from the grid and move freely around a room,” Vespignani explained. “Roombots” could help differentially abled or elderly people, the researchers said in a study, to be published in the journal Robotics and Autonomous Systems.