A glob of jelly can play Pong thanks to a basic kind of memory
Researchers trained a polymer gel to play the computer game Pong by passing electric current through it and measuring the concentration of ions
By Matthew Sparkes
22 August 2024
Pong is a simple video game
INTERFOTO/Alamy
An inanimate glob of ion-laced jelly can play the computer game Pong and even improve over time. Researchers plan further experiments to explore whether it can handle more complex computations and hope it could eventually be used to control robots.
Inspired by previous research that used brain cells in a dish to play Pong, Vincent Strong and his colleagues at the University of Reading, UK, decided to try playing the tennis-like game with an even simpler material. They took a polymer material containing water and laced it with ions to make it responsive to electrical stimuli. When electricity is passed through the material, those ions move to the source of the current, dragging water with them and causing the gel to swell.
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In an experiment, the researchers used a standard computer to run a game of Pong and passed current into different points on the hydrogel with a three-by-three grid of electrodes to represent the ball moving. A second grid of electrodes measured the concentration of ions in the hydrogel, which was interpreted by the computer as instructions on where to move the paddle to.
The team found that the hydrogel could not only play the game, but that, with practice, its accuracy improved by up to 10 per cent and the length of rallies increased.
