A program built by a team at the Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University, simulates a variety of virtual species. The program builds these virtual robots out of 4 different types of cubes: Type 1 Muscle, Tissue, Type 2 Muscle, and Bone whereas tissue and muscle act as soft and hard supports respectively and Type 1 and 2 Muscles contract then expand and expand then contract respectively. The program then combines these blocks in seemingly random ways to construct these 'blocky' looking organisms. The Type 1 and 2 muscles are the main system for moving the organism and this movement can be simulated. Based off of this simulated movement, a distance over time calculation can be made and from this, the computer can simulate evolution with the concept: "quicker robots are rewarded with more children." These blocky robots are given the ability to 'breed' whereas the robots could, so to say, combine their DNA with other robots or some could produce in an asexual way. With this program, it is believed that concepts for robots that were not at all that easy to imagine can now be demonstrated and might lead to a design for an actual robot. However, these robots are very strange looking and I myself am having a hard time imagining what some of these robots may be used for, but the designs and the somewhat randomness does help to imagine what some of these ideas would look like. At this stage, all of the designs are very odd looking, and appear to act like Jellyfish, fumbling and wobbling around. It's actually quite creepy to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=z9ptOeByLA4#!
article: http://www.livescience.com/29092-virtual-robots-breed-and-evolve.html
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