Engines of Tomorrow by Robert Buderi, Simon & Schuster, $27.50, ISBN 0684839008
XEROX’s Mark Yim is building modular robots that shape-shift. A curious ambition, you might think. But Yim sees his creations as rescue robots, able to go anywhere. They assemble their modules into a wheel to roll swiftly over flat ground, shape-shift into a spider to pick their way over uneven terrain, then morph again into a snake to slither into narrow spaces. He has already managed the wheel-to-snake transformation and is getting close to the shift to a five-legged spider.
Yim and his robot form one of many delightful…
