Game of Life kit
Here's a video for a Conway's Game of Life (wiki) kit from Make.
In 1970, John Conway came up with a 1-player game called Game of Life. The Game of Life is a mathematical game that simulates 'colonies' that grow or die based on how crowded or lonely they are and is known for the way it creates a beautiful organic display out of randomness.LinkHere is a fun electronic kit that plays Conway's Game of Life. Make one kit and keep it on your desk, or attach multiple kit modules together to create a large display, like a cube.
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A frequent symbol in the true game of life is a glider, which was dubbed the official hacker symbol by slashdot in 2003. Many people discuss the unnecessary baptism, stating that (in jest) "No logo will be more recognizable than the existing pocket protector and high-water pants," but the logo was set in place anyways.
For more information, follow the above link, as well as this one.
A module is 4x4? I guess soldering 64 LED's for an 8x8 module wouldn't keep people's interests?
I wonder if, on this 3D cube, there is a configuration that will have the game continue indefinitely without resorting to a lone glider or parallel gliders.
I'm stupid. What are you talking about? I don't understand this thing. It's a game?
Cellular Automata
A cube? Non-Euclidean CGoL, now that's a mindfuck.
"I don't understand this thing. It's a game?"
It's not really a game. It's more about AI.
From Wikipedia (Each Cell is an LED in this video):
1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by loneliness.
2. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
3. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives, unchanged, to the next generation.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours comes to life.
And what you end up with are patterns which move or spin or just disappear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life
There's nothing actually random about it...
@6: To avoid the issue of what happens "at the edges", CGoL has often been represented in software on what I believe is topologically equivalent to a torus (like an old game of Asteroids). Non-euclidean happens all the time.
get a good program for playing around with Life: http://www.xs4all.nl/~jbontes/
learn some more about Life at http://www.ericweisstein.com/encyclopedias/life/
cool, but pixel density is way too low, it'd be much better if you made it from something like the sparkfun led panels. That's not a great description on my part but the little panels they used for the pong-table at the Maker Faire.
My introduction to Conway's Life was Piers Anthony's novel OX. Lacking a computer, I used to explore simple Life patterns in pencil on graph paper.
More recently, when I was looking for a way to decorate the cover of the pocket-sized Moleskine notebook I carry around with me, I wound up drawing a grid and a glider pattern in silver Sharpie.
Browser/Java-version of Game of Life:
http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/
(Warning: I just wasted an hour playing with the damn thing. Totally worth it :o)
The cube is kinda cool. I'd much rather have a Game of Life wall....or coffee table.
You should look at http://www.glitchds.com/ for a clever application of the game of life
While I agree that the pixel density is too low, if it plays that way cool music, I want one.
Actually, this is more like a 0-player game; once the initial state is determined, all other ones are too.
Oh my! I am having a bout of nostalgia. remembering punching in a CRT version of this game from David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games. sigh..... I had forgotten how satisfying watching it was to watch pixels crawl across a monitor. Sheer bliss!
@16 - i was thinking the same thing. This could be/run an awesome drum machine!
it'd be way better if the whole thing wasn't stamped with magazine brands and URL. It's not like any energy was even put into making a logo - just some crappy 20 point serif font derivate.
grttd my tth thrgh Stm Pnk, skppd vr Xn's glmy pcs, bt chp prdct plcmnt? sn't ths th blg tht spwd srcsm n th fk ndn Jns vs Sn Frncs fk lg bll.
you know, you could always modify one. Put your own art on it? And a mass assembly would be impressive.
What I'm impressed with is the $17.50 price tag per panel. Sure, you can build it for pennies, but that price shows admirable restraint in my book.
Awesome! I want a higher resolution cube as a paper weight. Or how about programmable wall paper?
I second the recommendation in comment #10. Life32 is a powerful CA program, and many hours can be lost playing around with different patterns.
People are still discovering new patterns all the time, such as new space ships or space filling breeders. You can even make logic circuits out of glider streams.
The names of various Game of Life patterns are very colorful: puffership, gosper gun, pulsar garden of eden, etc.
The Game is a Cosmic Joke. EMAG OF EFIL
Source of the music?
The awesome music is by Jonnay, name of the song is Overload. You can get it at:
http://www.jonnay.net
It's in the Music/AcidTechno section.