Sodaplay - Get into the Groove of Robotic Engeneering
An amoeba made in Sodaplay
Finally I have the opportunity to write about Sodaplay, an application I highly love but rarely used so far. Sodaplay is something like a 'virtual locomotion construction-kit' (if you would use robot-jargon). It is a physical-based modeling environment where you can explore the concept of springs, masses and muscles. Based on Java you can construct every thinkable locomotion creature, for instance amoebas, robots or wandering cells.
In the editor you are able to play around with parameters like gravity, direction, speed of cycling frequencies etc.. Also dragging and throwing your lifeform across the screen is involved and very fun. There are construction-editors and other facilities with game-like features available. Test for example how good your locomotion works and let your virtual creation beat each other in a race!
Sodaplay is a very nice Artificial Life application that is good to learn and to explore robotic concepts as well. But Sodaplay is also nothing new. The very first version of this program was released on the internet many years ago. It was originally created by Ed Burton and released in April 2000 by Soda.
Tags: tool, learning, artificial-life, simulation, toy, physics
Mar_25:2008 .020200 Comments(0)
