Agar Thesis

Agar: An Animal Construction Kit by Michael D. Travers S.B., Mathematics Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 1986 SUBMITTED TO THE MEDIA ARTS AND SCIENCES SECTION IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY February 1989 @Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1988 All Rights Reserved. Signature of the Author Michael D. Travers Media Arts and Sciences Section October 27, 1988 Certified by -jIi Marvin L. Minsky r' Donner Professor of Science Thesis Supervisor Accepted by vV I Stephen A. Benton Chairman Fmental Committee on Graduate Students FEB 24 1989 Agar: An Animal Construction Kit by Michael D. Travers Submitted to the Media Arts and Sciences Section on October 27, 1988 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abstract An animal construction kit is an interactive computer system that allows novice programmers to assemble artificial animals from simple components. These components include sensors, muscles or other effectors, and computational elements. They can also include body parts such as limbs, bones, and joints. A complete animal construction kit must also provide a world for the animal to live in, and must support the co-existence of multiple animals of different species. There are many motivations for building artificial animals. The most important one is to understand how real animals work. Building working models allows us to verify our…