The bridge to the future may be built by robots.

A research team led by a Harvard professor is exploring technologies that would allow swarms of robots to build bridges, towers and other structures in places where human workers can’t go. The simple, autonomous robots would take a supply of materials and a basic goal and just keep trying things until the structure was done.

It’s the latest project led by Justin Werfel, a senior research scientist at Harvard, who’s already figured out how to make insect-like robots build simple staircases and pyramids out of interlocking bricks. But those structures have a preset design, while the new effort leaves the architecture up to the robots.

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