Glossary:

• assembly procedure: A linear program of instructions for a builder, such as {(1)move forward,(2) turn right, (3)place brick}


• blueprint: As distinct from an assembly procedure, a blueprint is a symbolic representation of a final structure (phenotype), and contains no information about the building process.


• buildable
  
  • A phenotype is buildable if it can result from an embryogenic process that is subject to the constraints of its environment at every stage of development
  • A structure is buildable if it can be assembled by a builder (interpreting a linear assembly plan) subject to noisy physics at every step of assembly.


• builder: Can be thought of as the embryogenic agent, responsible for decoding an assembly plan (genotype) instruction-by-instruction into a resulting structure (phenotype).


• embryogeny:
  
  • The process of growth that defines how a genotype is mapped into a phenotype(Bentley & Kumar, 1999).
  • The interaction between a builder, an assembly procedure, and the environment.


• embryogenic scaffolding: temporary structural elements necessary to embryogeny that do not exist in the final developed phenotype.


• environment The world and physics (either simulated or actual) in which a builder and structure exist and operate.


• instruction: A primitive command to a builder, such as "move forward" or "place brick". The equivalent of an allele in our system.


• scaffolding: A structural element that exists during the building (embryogeny) of a structure, but that does not exist in the final structure.


• structure: The final result (phenotype) of a builder's implimentation of an assembly procedure


• yield: The percentage of times that a given assembly procedure perfectly builds the goal structure in a noisy environment.