I have no idea if anyone checks these threads after a week but not that it's over, I am super curious what strategies other folks used. I used a python script to pre-process my programs to minimize jumps and downloaded the sim to run an iterative optimizer with parallelization. I just put a little writeup and the code on github https://github.com/Will-Morr/MomentSwarm.

Most plants right now settle into a simple goto loop that places the requisite cells to survive and then spam seeds until they die. I have seen some interesting variety in body plans emerge where plants sort into discrete species regionally. I'm hoping to eventually get decision making to emerge organically. If things go well this system is theoretically capable of sexual selection (and maybe fisherian runaway) but that's a pipe dream right now.

https://github.com/Will-Morr/PlantBrainGrid

I've been playing with a similar system but designed for 3d printing, it's simple to make it self-supporting by just drawing a line from each parent to each child which is neat.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47035698

Points: 72

# Comments: 10

I'm realizing now that I tried a lot of weird shit during this project that just did not work at all or make it into the final product, I should do another video just of all my failed abomination marble runs.

Thank you! The emergent forms are much more interesting than they have any right to be for such a simple system.

Also to be fair the final system does lose a ball every 30ish minutes. The tuning was largely me staring at the run or taking a video trying to catch where they get lost. Instead of hand tuning I would just update the generator and print another one. I'm considering closing the loop with a camera but that would be a whole new project.