Ask 100 robotics scientists why they 're inspired to create modern-day automatons and you may get 100 different answers . For a team at Harvard University , it 's termites . `` Not the ones around here that destroy buildings , but the ones on other continents that build ... mounds more than 40 feet tall , '' said Justin Werfel , a staff scientist at Harvard 's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering . `` Somehow , all of them working together can build these large-scale , complicated things . '' The Harvard team members have created their own set of simple robots that they 're trying to teach to emulate those termites . The result , so far , of the TERMES Project is a squad of autonomous robots that can be instructed to build towers , castles and pyramids out of foam bricks , then successfully negotiate their way around the things they create . It 's part of a movement called `` swarm robotics , '' and it 's pretty much the opposite of all the Terminators and Cylons that we 've grown up with in the science-fiction realm . `` Typically , when you think of robotics , you think of one human-like , complicated robot , '' said Kristin Petersen , an academic fellow who spearheaded the design and construction of the TERMES robots . `` Instead , in swarm robotics , we 're looking at large numbers of simple ones . Rather than a robot being like a human , it 's more like a bunch of robots that are like an ant colony . '' Or , you know , a termite colony . Petersen and Werfel said they both had independently thought about emulating mound-building termites , which live mainly in Africa , Australia and South America . READ : 10 pop-culture robots that shaped the future . The team has gone to Namibia twice to study the termites there and plans a third visit . The scientists say the current TERMES robots are a basic version of what they 'd like to create once they have a better idea of how millions of termites work together on a single , massive project , sometimes long after the insects who started the construction are dead . The team 's robots take cues from each other based on which parts of the job have already been finished . So , when one robot leaves , say , a brick in a particular location , that tells the next robot what needs to be done next . `` The power 's in the swarm , '' Petersen said . `` The power is in not having a single point of failure because you have this one really advanced robot . The power is in sending out a bunch of robots that are really simple and hoping that some of them will succeed . '' That 's a key difference between TERMES and other swarm projects . Many others work more like an ant colony or beehive , with a single `` queen '' giving instructions to a team of underlings . In the long run , Werfel said , the TERMES system could be used on projects `` where we want construction done , but we do n't want people to be the ones to do it . '' That could be scenarios where it 's difficult , expensive or dangerous to use human crews . `` If we wanted to have a Mars base and we could send a team of robots on ahead to build the habitat first , that 's obviously a big advantage for the human astronauts who would show up later , '' he said . Of course , the team acknowledges that such lofty goals are a long way off . But in the nearer term , the scientists can see termite-inspired swarm robots being used for tasks like building dikes and piling sandbags during floods , keeping humans out of harm 's way . `` If some of them get swept away by rising waters , none of the others need even take notice , '' Werfel said . `` They do n't have to do anything differently . They just keep working . '' Added Petersen : `` We 're not intending to replace humans . We 're intending to work in situations where humans ca n't work or it 's impractical for them to work . ''
Harvard researchers create `` swarm robotics '' construction crew . Small , simple robots work together to build structures . The TERMES project is based on mound-building termites . They are able to construct a mound of up to 100 meters in diameter and can be used for many different purposes such as making roads or even houses.