TOOLBOX MAKE LOOKS AT KITS
Life Lessons from
the Game of Life
Conway’s Game of Life Kit
$18
adafruit.com
Our family reunions have become quite an
affair now that my mother can tally 21 grand-kids. Aged from 1 to 20, keeping them busy is
a challenge. For a previous reunion, I had built
a soda bottle rocket launcher that was a big hit
(see MAKE, Volume 05, page 78). This year
I had a small LED craft project for the little kids,
but needed something more challenging for
the older kids. Luckily, I came across the Game
of Life kit that Lady Ada at Adafruit Industries
had just updated.
The Game of Life, as proposed by John
Conway in 1970, is not really a game — other
than it’s fun to watch. From a given initial
pattern on a grid, using simple rules governing
the life or death of each square, amazing
shapes known as cellular automata can evolve.
The larger the grid, the more elaborate the
patterns can become. Performed with paper
and pencil in Conway’s time, the game is a
perfect application for a small microcontroller
driving an LED array. I purchased two of the
kits and had my girls, ages 9 and 13, try to put
them together. They both picked up soldering
quickly, and in a matter of hours we had two
working boards. What’s more, they enjoyed it!
At the reunion, we had a table set up with
two soldering stations. I pulled kids aside two
at a time, gave them a brief lesson on soldering, and then let them try their hand at it. I had
purchased a selection of LEDs so they could
178 Make: Volume
16
choose their own colors. Some of them picked
up soldering quickly, and rapidly finished
their kit. Others took their time, and would
take breaks as their attention waned. Some
required several sessions to finish the kit.
Inevitably, someone would make a solder
bridge or put an LED in backwards, and a
lesson on using desoldering braid was taught.
As each kit was finished and tested, it was
attached to the other boards that were already
assembled. The boards communicate their
status to each other, allowing larger and more
elaborate patterns to be formed. At the end, we
had ten boards, or 160 LEDs, working together.
We put the entire assembly in a prominent
location and let it run for the remainder of the
reunion. It was as mesmerizing to watch as the
campfire was. Several times, large repeating
patterns evolved.
As our families prepared to go their separate
ways at the end of the reunion, the kids were
given their boards to take home. Hopefully one
of the lessons learned was how reunions are a
chance to come together, if only for a while, and
be a part of something larger than ourselves.
—Ken Olsen
Watch the video of our ten Game of Life
boards at
makezine.com/go/reunion. The
younger kids’ project, Buggy, can be seen at
makezine.com/go/buggy.
