Spider Bots Weave With Carbon Fiber

New construction and building materials alert: carbon fiber could be the future of swarm construction. See how these new spiderbots utilize the material.

- Laura Close

The idea of spiderbots working as a swarm and able to climb walls is, at first, a terrifying concept. But these spiderbots—known scientifically as Mobile Robotic Fabrication System for Filament Structures—are meant to make the construction of the future simpler, not haunt our nightmares.

In fact, the spiderbots are more Roomba than spider, but their ability to scale walls has earned them this moniker. Graduate student Maria Yablonina of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart is the head of the project, which also partners with the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE).