Well. Another project just hit the beta stage. A Hexapod simulation based on the CarDemo that comes with jPCT.
The project was developed as a teaching aid for an Artificial Intelligence class at Reykjavik University. Basically, it's a hexapod (six legged creature) where the user has control over it's legs. If the legs move while touching the ground it propells the hexapod -- in simple lingo: you can make it walk.
The project uses the Constructionist A.I. approach in which the hexapod acts as a module communicating through a publish-subscribe mechanism -- a program called Psyclone that acts as a medium for messages. So you can create a seperate program (a brain) to control the hexapod through messages to the legs (on the same computer, or somewhere else in the world).
The project can be downloaded from
http://www.mindmakers.org (under "Projects", called CADIAHexapod,
direct link here). It requires Psyclone to run, but Psyclone is very easy to use and I included a simple step-by-step run guide.
Although it's mainly intended as an "A.I. operating system", I recommend Psyclone for anyone doing large scale systems in which it would be easier to maintain if broken down into seperate modules that interact. Currently, modules can be implemented in Java, C# or C++, giving the option of writing your project in many different languages at the same time.
- Hrafn Thorri