Workshop › Conway's Game of Life › Step 28 of 32

The glider gun

What we are doing

The most famous pattern: Bill Gosper's glider gun (1970). Conway offered a prize for a pattern that grows forever; this was the answer. 36 cells that shuttle back and forth and fire a new glider every 30 generations.

```js
// Patterns drawn as text: O is a live cell.
const GUN = [
  '........................O...........',
  '......................O.O...........',
  '............OO......OO............OO',
  '...........O...O....OO............OO',
  'OO........O.....O...OO..............',
  'OO........O...O.OO....O.O...........',
  '..........O.....O.......O...........',
  '...........O...O....................',
  '............OO......................',
]
```

What it means

• GUN is a list of 9 texts, 36 characters each: the gun, row by row. O is a big letter O, not a zero.
• The comma after the last line is allowed and keeps the lines alike.

Your turn

Under the SPEED line, after an empty line, write the comment and GUN.

Skills: Arrays and objects

← Patterns from text Fire the gun →

All steps

1. The board
2. Measure the grid
3. One living cell
4. A function that draws
5. The world in memory
6. Draw every living cell
7. A random soup
8. Count the neighbours
9. Four rules
10. Draw again and again
11. Next generation with N
12. Count the generations
13. Show the generation
14. A world without edges
15. Count the living
16. A generation every few frames
17. Let it live
18. Running or not
19. One place for the buttons
20. Space to play, N to step
21. Clear and shuffle
22. Where is the pointer?
23. Which cell?
24. Click a cell
25. Paint or erase?
26. Drag to paint
27. Patterns from text
28. The glider gun
29. Fire the gun
30. Buttons on the screen
31. Tap the buttons
32. Build it yourself: a world at rest