Life is a 2-D board game!

Conway’s Game of Life or the single-player zero sum game comprised of cellular automata with four simple rules. It was proposed by John Conway as a Scientific American article and not very long ago, it reassured me of the beauty of Mathematics.

The game has intrigued me for quite a long time.

I got the opportunity to dabble with the intricate patterns and get to know the rules when I alter the rules. The results are to say the least, quite disastrous. The conditions for Conway’s game begin to crumble down with simple changes in the rules. Simulations under way.

I am thinking along the lines of applying the Game of Life in Pattern Formation problems in Robotics. For its automaton-ness…no history, no future. Adaptability to future outcome, modification of rules as and when you like, the tenacity of the patterns. Oscillators, still lifes all can be used in different domains of Robotics.

An entire world of Robots can be imagined where all the different kinds of bots follow the rules of the game of life.

This not only controls the population, but also results in self-sufficient communities. This can teach us things about Android epistemology. For instance, a robot meant for video surveillance would not move, hence lives a Still Life. A robot meant to patrol a region frequently should be an Oscillator. The simple states of the Automata ensure crispness of pattern formation.

However it would be a challenge to deploy robots to the next states in the Automata, ensure which robots to move where, which robots to keep, which robots to summon. Virtually making a cell dead even when a robot lives there.

Cellular Automata would prove beneficial in self-organizing systems.

People tried the game with QR codes.

Fun Fact: I was introduced to Conway’s Game via a strategy board game with the same name - “Game of Life”.