The Game of Life by Alecia, age 16

8 cell row	Exploder	Glider	Toad
Here are some of my different Game of Life simulations that I had researched on the web.

Introduction

The simulation of Conway’s Game of Life can be easily modeled using Visualbots. Conway’s Game of Life is a cellular automaton (system in which a grid of cells follows specific rules) that has the ability to create specific patterns. Developed by John Conway, a Cambridge graduate, this game has been widely studied and has been published in Scientific American in 1970. The game is structured by a set of rules as follows:

• A living cell with 0-1 neighbors dies (it may be lonely)
• A living cell with 2-3 neighbors continues living
• A living cell with 4 or more neighbors dies (it is crowded)
• An empty cell with 3 neighbors comes to life

In the “Game of Life”, the original configuration of cells is dictated by a user. A pattern emerges when the above rules are applied repetitively to the grid. There are three ways a “game” can end:

• The population freezes due to a “stable configuration”
• The population dies from overcrowding or under population
• A repeating cycle occurs

Although the Game of Life may not have any specific analogy in real life, it illustrates an important concept that plays a role in governing the world around us: that simple rules, when applied at the individual level, can result in complex behavior at the group level. Often times, this result is produced through individual interaction, without individuals possessing an awareness of the "bigger picture" that is being created.

In Visualbots...

One can easily implement Conway's Game of Life using Visualbots by manipulating objects called Cells. My simulation is broken into several sections. The first section generates the initial configuration of live cells. This is done by defining a Tag property belonging to each Cell called "alive". "Alive" takes on a value of 1, for activated Cells, and a value of 0 for inactivated cells. The next stage of the program is the simulation. It consists of an outer loop which controls each time step of the simulation and an inner loop which cycles through each cell, applying the rules of the game. The animation is produced by coloring Cells that are alive green, and Cells that are dead blue.

I was able to use buttons in the Excel spreadsheet to activate my programs. Each initialization that I had created was represented by a button on the Excel worksheet. I also added a feature where the user can click on the display area to generate their own configurations.

I learned a lot when making my VisualBots simulations. Although I was familiar with Visual Basic, I was able to reinforce some of my skills. And, I learned some new structures- like the for-each-next loop. I also learned about the importance of emergent behavior, and its profound impact on the world. It's interesting to ponder how all the different parts of a system can come together to make patterns that weren't perceived on the individual level. This project has deepened my understanding of how the world works!

Above is a screenshot of the user interface I created.

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