This simple book (subtitled “experiments in synthetic psychology”) has a profound message about how lifelike behavior can emerge from remarkably simple systems. Cubelets are a kit for kids to build robots, but also a teaching tool for how students can understand complex systems and emergent behavior. Vehicles offers inspiration and deep thoughts on how complexity can arise from simple rules.
“We will talk only about machines with very simple internal structures, too simple indeed to be interesting from the point of view of mechanical or electrical engineering.
Interest arises, rather, when we look at these machines or vehicles as if they were animals in a natural environment. We will be tempted, then, to use psychological language in describing their behavior. And yet we know very well that there is nothing in these vehicles that we have not put in ourselves. This will be an interesting educational game.”