Termite Stigmergy Sorting Screensaver
This screensaver simulates real termite-inspired stigmergic sorting — simple wandering agents that pick up a wood chip when they bump into one alone and drop it when they bump into a pile, using nothing but their immediate surroundings. With no leader, plan or map, scattered chips reliably self-organize into a handful of large sorted piles.
How the Termite Stigmergy Sorting screensaver works
Simple agents wander the grid randomly, each carrying at most one wood chip at a time.
An empty-handed agent that bumps into an isolated chip picks it up; a chip-carrying agent that bumps into an existing pile drops its chip there instead.
There is no leader, no shared memory, and no global plan — each agent reacts only to what's directly in front of it right now.
Despite that, this purely local rule reliably clusters scattered chips into a shrinking number of larger piles over time, the same real emergent behavior seen in real termite mounds.
A worked example
Start with chips scattered evenly across the grid — within a few hundred steps, small clumps of two or three chips form, then those clumps themselves keep growing as wandering agents ferry stray chips toward them, leaving fewer, larger piles.
Settings & tips
- Termite count controls how many wandering agents work the grid at once.
- Chip color recolours the wood chips and piles.
- The grid reseeds with freshly scattered chips once sorting is nearly complete.
Frequently asked questions
- Do the termites have a plan or leader?
- No — each agent reacts only to whatever is immediately in front of it; the sorting into piles is a genuine emergent effect, not a coordinated plan.
- Is this based on real termite behavior?
- Yes — real termites and ants use comparable local pick-up/drop-off rules to build and organize their mounds, a phenomenon called stigmergy.
- Is a key needed?
- No — it's a pure local computation.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.