Computer Evolution of Buildable Objects for Evolutionary Design by Computers
Pablo Funes, Jordan B. Pollack · 1998
Introduction This chapter describes our work in evolution of buildable designs using miniature plastic bricks as modular components. Lego 1 bricks are well known for their flexibility when it comes to creating low cost, handy designs of vehicles and structures. Their simple modular concept make toy bricks a good ground for doing evolution of computer simulated structures which can be built and deployed. Instead of incorporating an expert system of engineering knowledge into the program, which would result in more familiar structures, we combined an evolutionary algorithm with a model of the physical reality and a purely utilitarian fitness function, providing measures of feasibility and functionality. Our algorithms integrate a model of the physical properties of Lego structures with an evolutionary process that freely combines bricks of different shape and size into structures that are evaluated by how well they perform a desired function. The evolutionary p