Droplets: A low-cost swarm robotics platform for teaching and experimentation

You can make one of these BristleBot-like (ie. Hexbug-like) "steerable vibrobots" for around $10 if you're willing to forgo the professional design. Here's an article that discusses one approach: http://www.hizook.com/blog/2011/09/08/infrared-remote-contro...

Cool, but whoever filmed their video should be fired. I've never seen anyone actually get real people to cross uncanny valley before. Thoroughly creeped out. Haha.