Orb Swarm is a kinetic art

Kinetic art

Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...

 work consisting of six semi-autonomous spherical robots. It was created in 2007 by a group of engineers and artists including Michael Prados, Jon Foote, Lee Sonko, and many others.
Orb Swarm was inspired by previous work in robotics and kinetic art, and seeks to emulate swarm behavior in nature and human dancing. Nearly all of the hardware and software

Free and open source software

Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...

 in the project is open source, and others are encouraged to build upon the project's efforts.

Technology

Each orb is driven by two motors, one for drive and one for steering. The shell is made of welded, water jet

Water jet cutter

A water jet cutter, also known as a waterjet, is a tool capable of slicing into metal or other materials using a jet of water at high velocity and pressure, or a mixture of water and an abrasive substance. The process is essentially the same as water erosion found in nature but greatly accelerated...

 cut aluminum, and it moves by pushing against the weight of the batteries inside. For guidance and control, there is a GPS module, an IMU

Inertial measurement unit

An inertial measurement unit, or IMU, is an electronic device that measures and reports on a craft's velocity, orientation, and gravitational forces, using a combination of accelerometers and gyroscopes. IMUs are typically used to maneuver aircraft, including UAVs, among many others, and...

, dead reckoning, and a computer running Linux.

Each orb has several banks of full color LEDs and a sound system that are controlled programmatically.

Performances

Orb Swarm first appeared at Burning Man

Burning Man

Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...

 in 2007. Other performances have included Maker Faire

Maker Faire

Maker Faire is an event created by Make magazine to "celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself mindset".-Past events:The first was held April 22 – 23, 2006, at the San Mateo Fairgrounds...

, Coachella

Coachella

Coachella may refer to;*Coachella, California*Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival...

, the California Academy of Sciences

California Academy of Sciences

The California Academy of Sciences is among the largest museums of natural history in the world. The academy began in 1853 as a learned society and still carries out a large amount of original research, with exhibits and education becoming significant endeavors of the museum during the twentieth...

 Nightlife, Robogames

RoboGames

RoboGames is an annual robot contest held in San Mateo, California. The most recent RoboGames was held April 15–17, 2011.RoboGames is the world's largest open robot competition...

, and the Techkriti

Techkriti

Techkriti is the annual inter-collegiate Technical and Entrepreneurship festival of IIT Kanpur. It was started in 1995 with an aim to encourage interest and innovation in technology among students and to provide a platform for industry and academia to interact.Speakers at Techkirti have included...

festival in Kanpur, India.