Time: 11:05 - 11:55pm, MWF
Location: Environmental Science and Technology L1125
Homework 2 (Flocking)
Homework 3 (Reaction-Diffusion)
Week 2
Chapter 2 in Origins of Life.
Craig Reynolds'
flocking of virtual
creatures.
Week 3
Chapter 3 in Origins of Life.
Metabolic pathways chart1
and chart2.
Wolfgang Banzhaf's self-organization in
binary strings.
Week 4
Chapter 4 in Origins of Life.
Tim Hutton's self-reproducing simulated molecules.
2D version of protein folding.
Optional:
Cyrus Levinthal
on protein folding complexity.
Classic DNA paper by
Watson and Crick.
Optional:
Stanley Miller's
bubbling flask to produce amino acids.
Seeing if
genetic code is optimal.
Week 5
Chapter 5 in Origins of Life.
Pattern formation by
reaction-diffusion.
Week 6
Simulation of
lipid micelles.
Week 7
Chapter 6 in Origins of Life.
The Genetic Algorithm.
Week 9
Plant growth using
L-systems.
Creating branching patterns using
Laplacian growth.
Simulation of
leaf venation.
Week 10
Chapter 9 in Origins of Life.
Development papers:
Fleischer/Barr,
Eggenberger,
Furusawa/Kaneko.
Week 11
Chapter 10 in Origins of Life.
Evolving
virtual creatures
from Karl Sims.
Evolving
autonomous agents
from Frank Dellaert and Randall Beer.
Week 12
Evolution and manufacturing of
crawling robots.
Swimming creatures
from Tu and Terzopoulos.
Evolved flying creatures.
Week 13
Chapter 11 in Origins of Life.
Thomas Ray's Tierra
system of evolving programs.
Robert Axelrod and the
Iterated Prisoner's
Dilemma.
Week 14
Chapter 12 in Origins of Life.
Craig Reynolds on
Co-Evolution
for game
of tag.
Ant foraging
behavior.
Tierra (digital creatures that execute code) from Thomas Ray.
Langton-style self-reproducing loops from Hiroki Sayama.Students will carry out several programming projects during the course. Basic programming skills are recommended for students entering the course, but no previous background in biology is necessary. There will be three or four small programming projects during the first part of the course. During the second half, students will propose and work on a large project of their choice. Projects can be done individually or in teams of two students.

Cell aggregation (courtesy of Kurt Fleischer)

Plant growth (courtesy of Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz)

Walking simulation (courtesy of Karl Sims)

Tentacle motion (courtesy of Andrew Cantino)

Flocking with collision avoidance (courtesy of Craig
Reynolds)
Go to Greg Turk's Home Page.