Rigid Road Walker

A rigid road stretches across a gap. Each walker is a jointed human figure: head, torso, two arms, and two legs with knees and feet. Every figure already knows how to walk. The Genetic Algorithm (GA) reshapes its body, leg length, height, build, and posture, and the right body is the one that crosses the holes and ducks the wrecking balls.

How it works

1. The road is a rigid deck of wooden planks fixed between two cliffs. It does not sag, sway, or bounce, so getting across is down to how the walker is built.
2. Some planks are missing, leaving holes. A walker strides across a hole only if its legs are long enough to reach the far side. Short-legged ones fall in. You set how wide the holes can be.
3. Heavy wrecking balls swing across the deck on chains. A longer chain hangs the balls lower, so a tall walker gets clipped while a short or low-standing one passes under. A struck walker is thrown off its feet and falls.
4. The walk itself is built in and the same for everyone, so the figure always moves cleanly. The GA changes only the body, leg length, torso height and width, foot size, head size, and how upright it stands, and those proportions decide its stride and height, and therefore which holes it clears and whether it ducks the balls.
5. Fifteen walkers step out at the same time, each in its own colours, so you can see the leader (marked with an arrow) pull ahead. The flags show the target distance and the best distance reached so far.
6. Fitness is how far the walker travelled before falling off the road.

What to watch

• Generation zero is mixed: short-legged ones drop into the first hole, tall ones get swept off by a ball. Over generations the population reshapes toward a body that fits the road, often long legs to span the holes on a low frame that slips under the balls.
• A taller body reaches farther but is easier for a ball to hit; a lower one ducks the balls but needs long enough legs to still span the holes. The GA finds the balance.

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