In an interactive² project dubbed³ "L'evolved," Harshit Agrawal and Sang-Won Leigh, two researchers from the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces⁴ Group, are exploring how to make everyday objects transform into "flying smart agents."

 

"We really look at this as a way of making the objects around us kind of speak with us," Agrawal said. "In the sense that they somehow know what they are doing, so they might prevent you from doing something wrong or light up your path in a dark environment."

 

So far, their project features drones acting¹ as flying tables that adjust to your height, fly away once you're done, or auto-eject if you start using the wrong pen on your homework. They also have a lampshade drone that hovers⁵ above you, focusing light on where you need it when you're reading a book in the dark.

 

To power their flying furniture, the pair used a motion capture system where a camera tracks everything in the room -- including the person and the drone, which receives commands from the computer.

 

"The computer knows where the drone wants to go by tracking where the person is," explained Leigh. "We are feeding that data from the computer to the drone so that it can move smoothly⁶ to the required position."

 

Currently, the duo faces two main challenges: stabilizing⁷ the drone, and feeding it a regular power supply (at the moment, it's connected to a power socket).

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