14 DAY TRIAL // We haven't kept a very close eye on the quadrocopters that Flying Machine Arena built, but that may have been a mistake if the recent video is anything to go by.
Christmas trees may be a symbol of holiday cheer, but they are fairly common.
Festive foam bricks aren't quite so common, but they aren't all that relevant to the world at large either.
The quadrocopters from Flying Machine Arena, or one of them, has just made both of the above climb higher on the importance scale.
If one were to stumble upon a YouTube video called Juliet's Christmas Tree (Quadrotor New Year 2!), one's opinion of robots might change.
After all, it is not every day that someone has a chance to witness a small flying machine build its own Christmas tree.
Even more unlikely would be to see a robot do such a thing out of apparent jealousy (or longing).
After all, robots don't have feelings (yet), regardless of what the Qbo flirtatious robots would have the world believe.
Juliet, one of the three quadrocopters, built an imitation of a fir tree out of stacked bricks of festive foam.
The video suggests that the robot had trouble sleeping and, upon noticing a holiday tree through a window, decided to make one of its own.
Whether or not someone was directing the creature with a remote control was left deliberately vague.
It is hard to believe that such a small device could possess the hardware and software sophistication required for something like that.
Then again, quadrocopters did juggle balls, and even played a close approximation of tennis, without outside input, so Juliet may have, in fact, been acting alone this time as well.
If this truly is the advent of machinized free will, one can only guess what another year of watching and learning will turn these quadrocopters into.
