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Add evolution simulation project to website
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‎_includes/header.html‎

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Projects
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</a>
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<ul>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/evolution_sim.html">Evolution Sim Display</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/remote_outlet.html">Remote Switched Outlet</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/power_supply.html">Bench Power Supply</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/pcb_clock.html">PCB Alarm Clock</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/night_vision.html">Night Vision Goggles</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/desk.html">Motorized Desk</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/IR_recorder.html">IR Recorder</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/home_automation_v2.html">Home Automation V2</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/internet_robot.html">Internet Robot</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects/N64_mod.html">N64 Mod</a></li>
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<li class="submenu_item"><a href="/projects.html">. . .</a></li>
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</ul>
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</td>

‎projects.html‎

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<div class="main_content">
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<table id="projects_table">
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<!-- Evolution Sim -->
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<tr>
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<td class="descr_table_entry">
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<a class="project_title" href="projects/evolution_sim.html">Evolution Simulation Canvas</a>
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<p class="project_description">This is a small wall mounted display that runs a simple evolution simulation that I wrote in Rust.
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It simulates little pixel creatures that use neural network "brains" to search for food in an environment. Think it ended up looking
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pretty neat!
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</p>
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</td>
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<td>
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<a href="projects/evolution_sim.html"><img class="project_image" src="projects/evsim_media/evsim_wall1_thumb.jpg"/></a>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<!-- LightLink -->
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‎projects/evolution_sim.html‎

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---
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---
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<html>
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<head>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../main.css"/>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../projects.css"/>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="project_pages.css"/>
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<title>Scott Stack's Website</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<div id="page">
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{% include header.html %}
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<div class="main_content">
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<h1 id="project_title">Evolution Simulation Display</h1>
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<table>
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<tr>
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<td class="text_td">
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<p class="section_title">Overview</p>
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<p class="section_text">
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A little art piece that simulates pixel creatures with neural network "brains". This was mainly a way to show off a
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software project I was working on to learn Rust: <a href="https://github.com/spstack/evolution-sim">https://github.com/spstack/evolution-sim</a>
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The basic idea is that each little pixel creature has a small neural network "brain" that allows it to take in input and perform an action in response
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at every step of the simulation. If a creature lives long enough to find food, it'll reproduce spreading it's brain structure to the next generation
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(with optional random mutations). The result is that, over time, the creatures should "learn" to be better at finding food and intelligent-ish behavior
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should emerge. It's pretty fun to watch the simulation progress and see what kinds of strategies the creatures start to adapt.
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</p>
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<p class="section_text">
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The actual hardware here is just an LED matrix behind a blank white canvas. The canvas diffuses the LEDs really nicely, and I'm pretty happy with the way it looks!
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The idea came from a post on the Adafruit website:
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<a href="https://learn.adafruit.com/use-an-art-canvas-to-diffuse-RGB-matrix">https://learn.adafruit.com/use-an-art-canvas-to-diffuse-RGB-matrix</a>
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It's being driven by a raspberry pi running a custom version of Linux built using Yocto. Definitely wasn't necessary, but I wanted an excuse to learn
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a bit about Yocto as well :)
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</p>
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<table>
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<tr>
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<td>
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<a href="evsim_media/evsim_demo.mp4">
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<video autoplay loop muted playsinline src="evsim_media/evsim_demo.mp4" class="section_image">
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This browser does not support the video tag.
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</video>
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</a>
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</td>
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<td>
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<a href="evsim_media/evsim_wall2.jpg">
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<img class="section_image" src="evsim_media/evsim_wall2.jpg" style="max-height: 425px;">
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</a>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>
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<a href="evsim_media/evsim_front2.jpg">
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<img class="section_image" src="evsim_media/evsim_front2.jpg">
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</a>
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</td>
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<td>
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<a href="evsim_media/evsim_back.jpg">
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<img class="section_image" src="evsim_media/evsim_back.jpg" style="max-height: 500;">
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</a>
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</td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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<p class="section_title">Software</p>
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<p class="section_text">
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Here's a <a href="https://github.com/spstack/evolution-sim">link to Github project</a> for the main simulation code. This project was really just a way for me to learn Rust,
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so it took a while to write it. The README in that repo has more information about the sim!
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</p>
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<p class="section_text">
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I also made an attempt to learn a bit about Yocto to create a more lightweight linux to run on the Raspberry Pi. Yocto is a kind of build environment used to
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create custom embedded Linux distributions. It basically allows you to create images that contain all your code and dependencies already installed.
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Here's a <a href="https://github.com/spstack/evolution-sim-yocto">link to the Yocto repo</a> for this project. It really just takes the baseline Poky distribution, adds support for the Raspberry Pi, and
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implements one recipe for getting the evolution simulation Rust code and installing it. It also sets up a startup script to ensure the program runs automatically
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upon boot.
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</p>
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<p class="section_title">Hardware</p>
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<p class="section_text">
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The hardware for this project is really pretty simple since I didn't design anything and pretty much just bought everything off the shelf.
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It uses a Raspberry Pi 3A with a special "bonnet" for interfacing with a HUB75 type LED matrix. Here are the parts:
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</p>
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<p class="section_text">
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<ul style="margin-left: 1em;">
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<li><a href="https://www.adafruit.com/product/4732">LED Panel</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://www.adafruit.com/product/4027">Raspberry Pi Model 3A+</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://www.adafruit.com/product/3211">LED Matrix "Bonnet"</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCYZZZ9N?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1">Blank Canvas</a></li>
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</ul>
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</p>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<!--
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<tr>
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<td colspan="2">
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<p class="section_title">More Pictures</p>
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<table class="img_table">
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<tr>
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<td class="img_td">
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<a href="pcb_clock_media/pcb_printed.jpg">
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<img src="pcb_clock_media/thumbnails/pcb_printed_thumb.jpg" class="img_thumb"
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/>
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</a>
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</td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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</td>
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</tr>
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-->
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</table>
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</div>
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{% include footer.html %}
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>

‎projects/evsim_media/IMG_6963.jpg‎

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‎projects/evsim_media/evsim_back.jpg‎

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‎projects/evsim_media/evsim_front.jpg‎

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‎projects/evsim_media/evsim_front2.jpg‎

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‎projects/evsim_media/evsim_wall1.jpg‎

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‎projects/evsim_media/evsim_wall1_thumb.jpg‎

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‎projects/evsim_media/evsim_wall2.jpg‎

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