They had to build a fleet of robots to study emergent behavior?! Have they heard of this amazing tool that can simulate pretty much any physical behavior for pennies on the dollars called "computer"?
I chalk up the physical robots to a bit of a PR stunt. Cool little robots is quite a bit more endearing than arrows on a computer screen. But that said, implementing such a system in physical robots could also be a kind of sanity check to ensure you aren't cheating the simulation by some kind of fault in your simulation. It's quite easy to share information between agents that you don't want being shared without realizing it. Something as simple as being a little careless with global variables could spoil the whole thing.
I wouldn't get so worked up about it.