project_ideas

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 03:36:32 +0000

@@ -44,8 +44,9 @@
  
  I have no idea how feasible it would be to bind keyboard events into the MFM.
  If this would involve significant C++ hackery, I suspect it's beyond my
  abilities. I need to do research here.
+ 
  
  === Bignum Arithmetic ===
  
  After [[people:divs115|Sridivya]]'s comments about the viability of the MFM for
@@ -56,5 +57,29 @@
  
  This idea feels at odds with the robust-first philosphy, but it seems like it
  would be worthwhile to show that robustness and correctness aren't mutually
  exclusive (or, in the event of failure, make no strong claims).
+ 
+ 
+ === Wall-less Garden ===
+ 
+ The "Wall-less"-ness here refers to the fact that the MFM is indefinitely
+ scalable in theory.  This idea was born during the makeshift class exercise on
+ Monday, Sept 18, where we tried to create a ''Leaf'' Element that would grow in
+ response to ''Ray''s projected by a ''Sun''.
+ 
+ This idea could be expanded to produce several different plant types (perhaps
+ encoding some notion of inter-species germination) that depend on a finite set
+ of resources (energy from the sun, water, nutrients from the soil).  It could be
+ fun to try to grow a garden, of sorts.  There's lots of room for growth here, in
+ the form of variety of plants each potentially composed of smaller elements, and
+ in the environment necessary to encourage "organic" behavior.
+ 
+ Something that would need to be answered soon is: "Is this a side-on or top-down
+ view?"  I'm tempted to have something top-down, since that permits growth of
+ tall, sun-hogging plants, and shorter plants that thrive without the sun's
+ energy.
+ 
+ This project idea seems to fall more in the "Art" side of things, serving no
+ practical purpose that I can think of other than to watch something pretty (or
+ not) emerge.

work_log

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 07:08:04 +0000

@@ -1 +1,25 @@
+ ====== Work Log ======
+ 
+ //Note: I’ve not been good about keeping a log of work as I go, but I think it’s worth recounting the progress to date in terms of the major milestones at least. Entries that are added retroactively are labeled as such.//
+ 
+ ==== Sep 18, 2017 ====
+ 
+ Together with [[people:joaquin|Joaquin]], [[people:james_green|James]] and [[:jojo_frayre|Jojo]], created a 20-minute approximation of a ''%%Sun`` and%%''Ray''%%used to guide growth of%%''Leaf` elements. It worked pretty well for a first cut, and made the idea of vine-like growth I was aiming for in my first “Cool” element seem more tenable.
+ 
+ ==== Sep 19, 2017 ====
+ 
+ Added Garden idea to [[people:david_ringo:project_ideas|my project ideas]]
+ 
+ ==== (Retro) Project proposal Sept 20 ====
+ 
+ The initial proposal was to make a //Wall-less Garden// in the MFM, the name hinting at the goal of indefinite scalability. The basic goal is to approximate plant life with resource-driven growth and behavior.
+ 
+ The elements I saw making up the model were divided into two groups. Plant-like things such as ''%%Stem%%'', ''%%Leaf%%'', ''%%Flower%%'', and ''%%Root%%'' would make up the “organic” part of the universe, while resources would be gained from ''%%Sun%%''s producing ''%%Ray%%''s carrying //energy//, ''%%Dirt%%'' carrying //nutrients// and ''%%Water%%'' carrying //water//. These three resources would be required by the organic elements to live and grow, and would ideally drive their behavior patterns in interesting ways.
+ 
+ There were some unanswered questions, such as whether there should be any kind of reproduction or genetics in the plants, and what the perspective would look like. The slide (shown below) from the proposal showed a (hand-drawn) image of what it might look like, with ''%%Dirt%%'' at the bottom of the MFM window, and ''%%Stem%%''s growing upwards. It was suggested that the side-on perspective was not really compatible with the scalability goal (restricting the universe artificially), and so was born the idea of a “Space Garden”, where ''%%Dirt%%'' could cluster and permit outwards growth in any direction.
+ 
+ The biggest question to answer was the justification of the project. Then and now, I believe this is fundamentally interesting in a more artistic sense than anything else. While the model purports to demonstrate something approaching artificial life, the exploration of //that// aspect is less interesting to me than producing a universe in which cool-looking things can grow.
+ 
+ {{:people:david_ringo:wall-less_garden.pdf}}
+

Robust-first Computing Wiki - people:david_ringo

project_ideas

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