{"id":588,"date":"2007-06-24T13:14:42","date_gmt":"2007-06-24T18:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/?p=588"},"modified":"2007-06-24T13:15:05","modified_gmt":"2007-06-24T18:15:05","slug":"evolving-buildable-lego-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/06\/24\/evolving-buildable-lego-structures\/","title":{"rendered":"Evolving buildable Lego structures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/helen.cs-i.brandeis.edu\/pr\/buildable\/anim1\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/helen.cs-i.brandeis.edu\/pr\/buildable\/anim1\/anim1.gif?w=400\" alt=\"Animated GIF of evolving bridge\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>More cool work out of <a href=\"http:\/\/helen.cs-i.brandeis.edu\/index.html\">Jordan Pollack&#8217;s lab at Brandeis<\/a>.  They&#8217;ve build a nice force simulator and design system for Legos called <a href=\"http:\/\/helen.cs-i.brandeis.edu\/pr\/buildable\/evocad\/\">EvoCAD<\/a> that lets you evolve Lego structures that satisfy various conditions.  Pablo Funes, who recently finished his PhD, used this to evolve spans of over 2 meters, tree-like structures, and counter-balanced cranes (<a href=\"http:\/\/helen.cs-i.brandeis.edu\/pr\/buildable\/crane\/cranesm.mpg\">cool video of it lifting 1\/2 kg<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/helen.cs-i.brandeis.edu\/pr\/buildable\/gallery\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/helen.cs-i.brandeis.edu\/pr\/buildable\/gallery\/pict1.jpg?w=400\" alt=\"Evolved Lego bridge\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As pointed out by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thinkartificial.org\/artificial-intelligence\/evolving-lego-brick-structures\/\">Think Artificial<\/a> in their discussion of this work<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8230;genetic algorithms result in &#8230; naturally messy constructs. This is actually one of the reasons that genetic algorithms are popular within artificial creativity research. Evolution results in various \u201cunanticipated?? or \u201csurprising?? constructs which can be perceived as creative.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Evolution, whether biological or &#8220;artificial&#8221; like that reported here, is an inherently messy business.  It&#8217;s always forced to work with what it <em>has<\/em>, and is further hampered by the lack of any long-term plan or design.  An incredibly powerful process, but unquestionably messy.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/geneticargonaut.blogspot.com\/2007\/06\/evolving-lego-structures-through.html\">Genetic Argonaut<\/a> for the initial pointer.<\/p>\n\n\t<div class=\"st-post-tags \">\n\tTags: <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/video\/\" title=\"Video\">Video<\/a><br \/><\/div>\n\n\n\t<h4>Related posts<\/h4>\n\t<ul class=\"st-related-posts\">\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/09\/11\/you-have-to-either-laugh-or-cry-and-ill-help-you-do-both\/\" title=\"You have to either laugh or cry (and I&#8217;ll help you do both) (11 Sep 08)\">You have to either laugh or cry (and I&#8217;ll help you do both)<\/a> (0)<\/li>\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/04\/06\/you-folks-are-super-generous\/\" title=\"You folks are super generous! (6 Apr 07)\">You folks are super generous!<\/a> (2)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More cool work out of Jordan Pollack&#8217;s lab at Brandeis. They&#8217;ve build a nice force simulator and design system for Legos called EvoCAD that lets you evolve Lego structures that satisfy various conditions. Pablo Funes, who recently finished his PhD, used this to evolve spans of over 2 meters, tree-like structures, and counter-balanced cranes (cool &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/06\/24\/evolving-buildable-lego-structures\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Evolving buildable Lego structures&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[4,12,15],"tags":[876],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-9u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":311,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/02\/06\/daaaagstuuuuuhl\/","url_meta":{"origin":588,"position":0},"title":"Daaaagstuuuuuhl!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"6 Feb 06","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm happy ensconced once again at the Schloss Dagstuhl International Conference Research Center for Computer Science in Germany for a week, and it's swell. The short version is that Dagstuhl is a 1700's manor house converted into a dedicated CSci research facility. They run a series of weekly workshops on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":659,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/10\/01\/what-does-refactoring-really-mean\/","url_meta":{"origin":588,"position":1},"title":"What does refactoring really mean?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"1 Oct 07","format":false,"excerpt":"I just stumbled across this cool essay on refactoring by Steve Yegge. I don't agree with everything (there's a comment near the bottom that I agree with a lot), but there's some very cool stuff here about the \"real\" meaning of refactoring, and the importance (or lack thereof) of automated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":545,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/04\/27\/chickens-and-egss-in-energy-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":588,"position":2},"title":"Chickens and eggs in energy policy","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"27 Apr 07","format":false,"excerpt":"In one of my classes we've been discussing energy consumption, and the pros and cons of using tools like large gas taxes to help control consumption. One of my students just posted a link to a piece that predicts that we're looking at $4\/gallon gas this summer in the U.S.,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":489,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/25\/go-with-the-flow\/","url_meta":{"origin":588,"position":3},"title":"Going with the flOw","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"25 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a snowy-stay-inside day (for us anyway), so you might as well play a game. (Unless, of course, you're in my Software Design class, in which case you ought to be in the lab working like dogs! :->) Consequently, you might want to check out flOw, a free Flash game\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":523,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/03\/22\/anyone-know-whos-paying-this-bozo\/","url_meta":{"origin":588,"position":4},"title":"Anyone know who&#8217;s paying Barton?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"22 Mar 07","format":false,"excerpt":"clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Al Gore makes global warming plea He said the US should freeze carbon dioxide emissions and push for a strong climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. Representative Joe Barton, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, challenged global\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":811,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/03\/06\/not-quite-a-wave\/","url_meta":{"origin":588,"position":5},"title":"Not quite a wave","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"6 Mar 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes you're just minding your own business, trying to get a little science done, and a little art pops out at you all unexpected. What?!? You want to know where this comes from? All is revealed beneath the fold... The dotted line is, not surprisingly, the sine function plotted from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}