Pushing and sculpting: an example of leveraging emergent behaviors of elasto-active structures

Active matter systems consisting of centimeter-scaled self-propelled microbots can orchestrate their movements into spatial-temporal patterns via the application of external cues or when confined. Here, we leverage nonlinear elasticity and body morphology to control and predict these near-diffusive motile microbots in forming structures capable of many emergent behaviors, e.g., following a wall, solving a maze, etc. In this talk, we focus on the structure's interaction with dispersed obstacles in a confined space where they can push them into clusters. We show that by tuning obstacle properties, e.g., size, mass, heterogeneity, etc., and leveraging the elasticity of the structures, we can predict and control the shape and number evolution of the formed clusters. The experiments are corroborated by a model derived from the Smoluchowski coagulation theory. These findings demonstrate the potential of elasto-active systems to autonomously orchestrate complex behaviors, offering new avenues for designing physically intelligent structures capable of adaptive organization and storage in confined environments.