VID 20130801 203427 from paba on Vimeo.
Firefly was honored to be selected to be exhibitor in the Living Machines Exhibition on August 1st at the Science Museum in London, UK. The exhibition was part of the 2013 Living Machines Conference that focused on the intersection of research on novel life-like technologies inspired by the scientific investigation of biological systems.
Thank you to Charles Fox and Tony Prescott for all their hard work in setting up such a lovely event.
Flashing patterns in the game.
For the Living machines Exhibition, we reprogrammed the fireflies boards based the flashing patterns of one of the 5 main subfamilies of fireflies: Photurinae. In North America, these are the fireflies you’re probably most familiar with. Not all fireflies in this subfamily light up, but those that do are generally divided into three closely related species: Photinus, Photuris, and Pyractomena. The Photinus are the most common of this group and the species used for the flashing patterns in the game.
The flashing patterns used in the game are based on the flashing patterns between male and female fireflies of Photinus curtatus and Photinus pyralis. The game’s flash patterns are not a direct mapping but reflective of the timings and visual pulses and trails of the fireflies in nature.
Firefly v 2.0
We were excited to unveil version 2.0 of Firefly. We made new boards that are easier to program. This will allow us to expand the options of gameplay for Firefly. We were able to test out the new design and new programs at the Living Machines exhibition.
VID 20130808 171214 from paba on Vimeo.
References: Lloyd, J. E. (1966). Studies on the flash communication system in Photinus fireflies. & http://www.firefly.org/