Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!cornellcs!newsstand.cit.cornell.edu!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!btnet!news.compulink.co.uk!cix.compulink.co.uk!usenet
From: did@cix.compulink.co.uk ("Digital Image")
Subject: Evolution project
Message-ID: <DI17G9.BAq@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Organization: Compulink Information eXchange
X-Newsreader: PowWow
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:48:08 GMT
Lines: 43

Anyone interested in an alife project based on evolution ??
It's a project I wrote year ago for my computing degree
(it got a 1st). I've created a shareware version of the sim
(I still have massive student debts :( ) that I intend to 
download it as soon as I can get the download to work.

I'm out of touch with the alife world now, so i'm not
sure what's been done/is being done, but I thought people
could have a play with my project and give me some feedback.

The sim contains bugs (for want of a better description) which
have many different attributes eg Energy, age, weight, strength,
speed, repoduction age, number of children and more. Also each 
bug is made up of different cells. Cells in the sim are Mouth(for
eating and attacking), fat (energy storage), muscle (deffence and
momement), bone (defence and body support), sensor (for detecting
objects in the environment).

Bugs start off simple - 1 mouth and a fat cell. They move around
the enviroment eating plants, and each other!. When the bugs 
have offsrping sometimes random mutation occur which alter the
cells in the bug. Eg an extra fat cell. The configuration and
type of cells each bug constists of directly effects the way it
lives. 

As time goes on new species are created and old ones die off.
The bugs slowly adapt to their environment. The idea of the project
was to try and simulate the way evolution works, and it does seem
to work in the sim. One test I tried was the Nich adjustment, this
worked very well. The sim produced results predicted by the thoery.

Well that's a brief description of what the sim does, there's quite
a bit more to it though....

I'll post a message when I figure out how to get the zip file down.

Sorry if my spelling is bad - no spell checker here!

Enjoy,

Steve Hunt.  

E-Mail: steveh@did.com
