Busby Berkeley beverages

This came to me in a dream last night. I am sitting at a slightly threatening sinister table with a glass of water. In that glass of water is a crowd of little plastic androids about five millimetres in height, doing a synchronised swimming display.

It may not yet be possible to produce tiny figures which can do this kind of thing because of the processing power required to make an effective android five millimetres high, but what if there were grosses of them, each containing a simple CPU, a few motors, cameras, microphone-speakers, accelerometers and a radio transmitter-receiver? You have a vast army of little robots whose main joints have the same degrees of freedom as the human spine and limbs and programme them to dance in synchrony. Then, you fill your glass or mug with your drink of choice, attach a little step ladder and diving board to the side and set them off. They climb the side of the vessel, jump in and perform a Busby Berkeley style dance routine, possibly in time to music. Insufficient processing power is addressed simply by increasing the number of dancers until there is enough - they hide under the table, in your handbag or just somewhere out of sight.

Doubles as a mobile 'phone operated by shouting at them and having them shout back in chorus.

The idea could also be transferred to toy soldiers and maybe little swarms of people who inexorably reduce you to mincemeat when they are set to evil.