%0 Journal Article %1 funes:2007:sigevo %A Funes, Pablo Jose %D 2007 %J SIGEVOlution %K LEGO algorithms, genetic programming, %N 3 %P 6--19 %T Buildable Evolution %U http://www.sigevolution.org/issues/pdf/SIGEVOlution200703.pdf %V 2 %X The most interesting results in Artifical Life come about when some aspect of reality is captured. In the mid-1990s, Karl Sims energised the AL community with his ground-breaking work on evolved moving creatures 28, 29. The life-like behaviour of Sims' creatures resulted from combining evolved morphology with a physics simulation based on Featherstone's earlier work 9. The question that begged asking was: can a similar thing be done in the physical world? Can we make creatures that walk out of the computer screen and into the room? Two components were required: a language to evolve morphologies that have real-world counterparts, and a way to build them -- either in simulation or by automated building and testing. We set out to demonstrate that buildable evolution was possible using a readily available, cheap building system -- Lego bricks -- and an ad-hoc physics simulation that allowed us to study the interaction of the object with the physical world in silico; with respect to gravitational forces at least. The result 10, 14, 12, 13, 15, 16, 25, 23, 26, 24, 27 is a system that can evolve a variety of different shapes and is very easy to use, set up and replicate. Here I present an overview of the evolvable Lego structures project. Coinciding with the publication of this article, the source code is being released to the community (demo.cs.brandeis.edu/pr/buildable/source).

@article{funes:2007:sigevo, abstract = {The most interesting results in Artifical Life come about when some aspect of reality is captured. In the mid-1990s, Karl Sims energised the AL community with his ground-breaking work on evolved moving creatures [28, 29]. The life-like behaviour of Sims' creatures resulted from combining evolved morphology with a physics simulation based on Featherstone's earlier work [9]. The question that begged asking was: can a similar thing be done in the physical world? Can we make creatures that walk out of the computer screen and into the room? Two components were required: a language to evolve morphologies that have real-world counterparts, and a way to build them -- either in simulation or by automated building and testing. We set out to demonstrate that buildable evolution was possible using a readily available, cheap building system -- Lego bricks -- and an ad-hoc physics simulation that allowed us to study the interaction of the object with the physical world in silico; with respect to gravitational forces at least. The result [10, 14, 12, 13, 15, 16, 25, 23, 26, 24, 27] is a system that can evolve a variety of different shapes and is very easy to use, set up and replicate. Here I present an overview of the evolvable Lego structures project. Coinciding with the publication of this article, the source code is being released to the community (demo.cs.brandeis.edu/pr/buildable/source).}, added-at = {2008-06-19T17:35:00.000+0200}, author = {Funes, Pablo Jose}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/29d916a5d95810cb0f2970fdf896ef2bc/brazovayeye}, interhash = {31fc8a2a161eda0ce12ea170e385923e}, intrahash = {9d916a5d95810cb0f2970fdf896ef2bc}, journal = {SIGEVOlution}, keywords = {LEGO algorithms, genetic programming,}, month = {Autumn}, notes = {Published April 2008. Grammar, 2D and 3D, mutation and crossover, development, bloat, test and prune, network torque propagation, NTP, EvoCAD, MNFPs, linear programming solver, crane, long bridge, table. homepage: http://www.icosystem.com DEMO lab Brandeis.}, number = 3, pages = {6--19}, size = {14 pages}, timestamp = {2008-06-19T17:39:58.000+0200}, title = {Buildable Evolution}, url = {http://www.sigevolution.org/issues/pdf/SIGEVOlution200703.pdf}, volume = 2, year = 2007 }