  In this paper, we introduce a novel design paradigm for modular architectured
materials that allows for spatially nonuniform designs from a handful of
building blocks, which can be robotically assembled for efficient and scalable
production. The traditional, design-limiting periodicity in material design is
overcome by utilizing Wang tiles to achieve compatibility among building
blocks. We illustrate our approach with the design and manufacturing of an
L-shaped domain inspired by a scissor-like soft gripper, whose internal module
distribution was optimized to achieve an extreme tilt of a tip of the gripper's
jaw when the handle part was uniformly compressed. The geometry of individual
modules was built on a 3$\times$3 grid of elliptical holes with varying
semi-axes ratios and alternating orientations. We optimized the distribution of
the modules within the L-shaped domain using an enumeration approach combined
with a factorial search strategy. To address the challenge of seamless
interface connections in modular manufacturing, we produced the final designs
by casting silicone rubber into modular molds automatically assembled by a
robotic arm. The predicted performance was validated experimentally using a
custom-built, open-hardware test rig, Thymos, supplemented with digital image
correlation measurements. Our study demonstrates the potential for enhancing
the mechanical performance of architectured materials by incorporating
nonuniform modular designs and efficient robot-assisted manufacturing.
