Termites
Termites are pretty dumb. In this emulation, a bunch of termites walk around in a field of wood chips. When they bump into a chip, they pick it up. When they bump into another wood chip, they put the wood chip they are carrying down next to it. They then start looking around for another wood chip to pick up. (And you thought your job was boring!).
In the movies, white dots are termites without wood looking for wood. Diamonds are termites carying wood. When a wood chip is deposited, you see it age. Newly deposited chips are blue - and turn to yellow as they stay there for a few turns
- Termites Clear Field
- Tunneling Termites
Fifty termites clear a field where 2.5% of the area is covered with wood chips. 4500 steps are shown. Termites can go through the right and left walls but not the top and bottom. The modulo effect is as if the termites are working around a tree trunk.
Resources
- Animation of how ants use pheromone to get food back to their nest. Click on the animation to drop food. Click Pheromone to see the pheremione stregth. Add ants by ckicking of the lowe rleft. Be prepared to spend your day watching.
- National Geographic article on swarm intelligence.
- Swarming on the Battlefield (Google books)
- Swarm Intelligence in Business Harvard Business Review
