Software you can play with

Intelligent Design Version

This is the latest version of the software is different because it takes care of the building of the geometrical structures, by growth mutations, rather than having you build them yourself. It presents a kind of planet with hexagonal patches, and on each patch a creature is stored. When you click, you hilight two patches and make the creatures there compete for survival against each other. You can watch them as they evolve the ability to run, and you can play around with their world (physics etc) as if you were their god. :)

Build-Evolve Version

This is the first version of the software in which the evolution of locomotion was something anybody could play with. The Build-Evolve version allows you to sign up and create your own geometrical structures, which you can then subject to survival-of-the-fittest to see if they can learn to move.

For Developers

Blind Watchmaker

This is the latest effort, and it is geared towards arriving at a generic approach building phenotypes and orchestrating their behavior based on a binary genotype. It makes use of Java Annotations to for associating code with the genotype, but it does not really allow the programmer to write a program. Instead, the programmer is challenged with developing only an instruction set.

Ecodesic

This project is about creating a minimal universe in the shape of a sphere in which artificial life entities move around on the surface and interact with each other, hopefully eventually displaying predator-prey behavior etc. It is intended to be an environment in which the Blind Watchmaker code can be demonstrated.

Tensegrity

This ongoing project involves researching the nature of "tensegrity", which is a structural principle invented by Kenneth Snelson involving only pushing and pulling elements, but with the very special restriction that pushing elements never touch each other. Tension is the basis of the structural integrity, and the bars are suspended individually in a network of it. The goals is to work towards evolving tensegrities as a form of artificial life, but such that they can aftwards actually be built as physical structures.