Agar
30 Oct 2021 - 28 Nov 2024
- Agar is a system I built as part of my SM degree work at the Media Lab. It provided a set of objects (world, creatures, sensors, actions, and behaviors) for creating simulations of animal behavior. The behaviors are specified in terms of agents, or small units of behavior. Agar's main example was a simulation of ant food-foraging behavior. The best description of Agar is in my MS Thesis, Agar: An Animal Construction Kit) (1988). Unfortunately this version does not have illustrations.
- Agar was written in an ancient version of Mac Common Lisp, the Lisp source is available but probably not runnable without a ton of work. There's also a runnable application which again, won't be of current use, unless you find an emulator that works.
- Agar's notable distinctions include:
- Winning the prize for "best software insect" at the 2nd Workshop on Artificial Life, 1990.
- Being declared a threat to the security of the US Federal Prison System.
- Being adapted to a piece of interactive art that was shown at SIGGRAPH The Electric Anthill
