Add this flexible assembling mechanism to 3D printing and some traditional robotics... and you have a very interesting builder-thing indeed.
Highly complex machines such as drones could be rapidly manufactured or repaired from some raw materials in the field, so long as pre-manufactured pieces such as microprocessors, optics, motors, etc. were in place.
I challenge you to come up with any definition of "robot" that isn't hotly contested by someone in robotics. (Disclaimer: I'm a career roboticist.)
The most succinct definition I've ever heard: A robot is a machine that doesn't work; as soon as it starts working, it's called something else (vacuum cleaner, autonomous car, dishwasher, Rosey, etc.)
Your definition of robotics is similar to one I've heard for artificial intelligence. As soon as AI works for something, it's renamed (machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, etc.)
My friend works on this project at SRI and I've had the fortune of seeing the little robots in action. It's quite a marvel seeing structures getting built in this distributed fashion via a group of robots.
seeing DARPA on the title screen of the video naturally cross connects it with the other news about Pentagon drone swarms - lets SRI robots have "weapons" instead of tools, and swarm of carbon fiber bodied Piranya or killer bees with titanium teeth or stingers with high voltage contacts naturally come to mind :)
The robots are controlled by the surface they're traveling on, they don't work outside of it, much like how you can't glide an air hockey puck down I-5.
