Impossible Machines

About Impossible Machines

An interactive world where missing mechanisms appear between cause and effect.

In the maker’s words

Hey all — Sharing a thought experiment I put together. The premise: what might declarative programming feel like for the physical world? We’re already familiar with this paradigm in software land (eg SQL etc where we declare what we want and the execution engine figures out how). I didn’t have access to an actuator so I mocked up the concept in software. The way it works is you demonstrate the effect and the system figures out how to achieve it. So say you want to ring a bell and you have a crank. The system will find a way to connect the two. If you add obstacles it figures out how to work around them (runs a constraint solver runs behind the scenes). I think what’s interesting about this is being able to think about the problem at a higher level of abstraction, with the system figuring out a way to achieve the intended effect. Anyways, curious to read reactions, feedback, and interesti…

Where people found it

• Hacker NewsShow HN: Impossible Machines: declaratively program the physical world81 points22 comments4 days ago