SIG-FPT 2026-08-14

Session Recording Summary · 65m 20s · Full notes ↗

Reading: Not clearly identified in the discussion. This session was primarily a **project/hackathon planning meeting** rather than a reading discussion, though participants referenced prior readings — notably an "ant colony optimization" paper reviewed the previous Friday and earlier readings on disrupting ant path-finding/stigmergic coordination.

The group met to plan a two-day hackathon/workshop built around a browser-based ant colony ("stigmergy") simulator that Dan has developed. Dan demoed the current single-player simulator and a newer multiplayer "shared world" version with a colony-survival leaderboard. Discussion centered on how to structure the workshop (synchronous vs. asynchronous formats, how many design variables to expose, a competitive vs. exploratory two-track model), how to frame it around a security/adversarial theme, and what technical work is still needed. The group closed with concrete next steps and logistics (dates, sessions, registration).

• **Dan:** The simulator runs entirely in the browser (no backend/database). Ants leave the nest, drop pheromones to find their way back, and lay a second pheromone trail to food once found. Users can adjust simulation speed, colony size (up to 100), number/size of food sources, pheromone evaporation rate, signal-following strength, and "gland size" (how long ants can lay pheromones).
• **Dan:** A newer, not-yet-open-sourced version is a shared multiplayer world with real-time stats and a leaderboard for longest-surviving colony, plus a "god mode" to sabotage others (e.g. walling off a colony). He reported coworkers got quickly addicted/competitive.
• **Venkatesh Rao:** Two feature layers — (1) "platform" features supporting research questions, and (2) an API / plug-in architecture letting people define ant strategies, run automated experiments, and log data. Outputs could be simulator "movies" plus plotted metrics (e.g. how fast ants die out).
• **Venkatesh Rao:** Strong emphasis on **limiting variables** — too many produces "a chaotic soup" with no interesting results. Suggested picking 2–3 design variables with trade-off relationships (e.g. colony size vs. ant speed).
• **Venkatesh Rao:** Proposed a **two-track structure**: a competitive contest for "killer" types, and a non-adversarial exploratory track (e.g. "produce the most interesting phenomenon and save a video"). Referenced the Bartle taxonomy of player types to appeal to more than one motivation.
• **Venkatesh Rao:** Keep entry **low-code/zero-code** — ideally define your team's parameters via a web interface and enter a bracket/tournament.

Questions & Disagreements: - **Synchronous vs. asynchronous format:** Dan laid out two directions — keep investing in the live shared/multiplayer world, vs. an async "eval/benchmarking" system where colony configurations are scored across many mazes and adversarial conditions. He suggested both could coexist. Patrick leaned toward synchronous tournaments; Venkatesh Rao pushed for simplicity and a two-track split. - **Scope

Participants: Patrick Nast, Venkatesh Rao, Dan Schmidt, Ergod, Giovanni Merlino, Vibhav, Robby Rao