Imagine a new generation of shape changing robots with soft bodies, a new species of robots with 'intelligent' bodies, not stiff legs, limbs and torsos anymore like today, but robots with bio- structural analogies realised in their mechanics, locomotion and architecture. That means that the structure itself has somekind of 'intelligence', when force stress from outside is applied it absorbs shocks like a cell in nature, by spreading the tension into the whole framework and its components. A great starting point for such 'mind bodies' is to construct modular Tensegrity structures, special cable-strut systems known from two creative heads, the sculptor Kenneth Snelson and the architect Buckminster Fuller, which can easily transform ('Tensegrity' is a mixed word for 'Tense' and 'Integrity', the combination of traction and compression results in a very interesting light-weight architectural framework). For the purpose of kinetic, shape changing body structures bamboo has reasonable advantages, it is flexible when force is applied and absorbs stress well. The current Bamboo Tensegrity Robot 'Shi' (chinese, means 'Generation') is another adaption (the first one was the Bamboo Bug 'Tao') of the four legged 'Miller Walker' (named after its inventor Andrew Miller), a two motor insectoid walking robot. Unlike its analogue programmed precedor this version has a digital controlled 'brain', a first successful attempt to clone arduino boards.
