Slashdot reports on a project to develop a low-cost open robot platform for swarming and flocking research. The new platform, called Flockbot, is being developed by Evolutionary Computation Laboratory at George Mason University. "They're trying to pack as much functionality as possible into a roughly $800, 7" mobile swarmbot, and publish the design and software as a free and open spec. So far their design includes a wireless 200MHz Gumstix linux computer, a camera, range and bump sensors, wheel encoders, a can gripper, and lots more."