ISTA 301: Cellular Automota

Next up I'll discuss my experiences with Cellular Automota. Back when I first started my CS Major, I got to do an assignment in CS 127A... or was it B? Either way, I got to program a simple Game of Life. I can't remember the exact assignment specs, I believe it was that if there were two or less adjacent neighbors the cell would "die" and if there were four or more adjacent neighbors the cell would also die. This rule set only allowed cells with exactly three adjacent neighbors to populate or remain alive.

This version of Game of Life simply occurred in a 2D Array, but I remember that there was interesting results. The program would take in a number of cells and then randomly place a multiple of that number across a very large grid, probably 80 cells by 80 cells. The program would then change the surrounding cells based on the rules in real time. This allowed a variety of different patterns to emerge, and occasionally a stable island would appear or a wave would cause many a ripple of "births" and "deaths". I would love to work with more Cellular Automota in my CS Career and beyond.