Some algorithms create such creature like movements and behavior that we think that they are alive. It doesn't even matter if it's on a screen or if it's a complete animatronic machine. People will relate to them. In the lecture about Artificial Creatures I got really excited about making my own with my Arduino. That's why I chose it as my favorite topic for the lab weeks. It's like creating a living thing without the hassle of cleaning up dirty diapers.
For this week’s assignment we had to apply homeostasis to an everyday thing. Homeostasis is a way of visualizing the state of a machine or organism. It can be used to track if something needs to be replaced, fed or ordered.
I chose the easy order panel from the restaurant with the big yellow M and applied the homeostasis to it to illustrate what variable a machine like that has on a certain moment.
Meters of receipt roll
Milliliters of Ink left
Minutes without cleaning
Days left until service
Voltage of Power input
Wi-Fi reception
Hours of running time
Apart from the information given in the lecture, I googled and found this interesting article: What is homeostasis? It gave me a clear understanding of what homeostasis truly is.
I was excited about this topic because I really wanted to learn about making robots. But I learned that artificial creatures are more than just robots. They can be white dots on a black background with a basic algorithm called ‘the game of life’. Speaking about games; games contain computer-controlled enemy’s and other characters that use AI to move about. Even a Roomba can be considered an artificial creature. The least exiting part was the homeostasis and I was bumped that we the assignment wasn’t about another category, because the rest sparked my interest very much.