Project Overview

This project is an interactive ecosystem simulation where virtual organisms, or "blobs," compete for survival in a simulated environment. The organisms must navigate the environment, seek out food, and return to a safe zone before their energy runs out. The simulation is designed to explore basic principles of natural selection, energy management, and organism behavior in a simplified ecosystem.

Purpose

The primary purpose of this project is to create a simulation that demonstrates key concepts in evolutionary biology, such as survival, reproduction, and natural selection. The project also serves as a practical example of object-oriented programming (OOP) and graphical user interface (GUI) development using Java and JavaFX.

Key Features

Organism Behavior: Each organism starts in a designated safe zone and must find food to survive. After consuming food, the organism must return to the safe zone within a specified time limit.

Energy Management: Organisms lose energy over time. They gain energy by consuming food, but if they fail to return to the safe zone before their energy depletes, they die.

Safe Zone: A designated area on the screen where organisms must return after finding food to deposit their energy.

Reproduction (Future Feature): Organisms may reproduce if they gather enough energy, creating new organisms with slightly mutated traits.

Natural Selection (Future Feature): Over time, traits that are advantageous for survival may become more prevalent in the population.

Technologies Used

Java: The core programming language used to implement the simulation logic, organism behavior, and energy management.

JavaFX: A GUI toolkit used to create the graphical interface, including the simulation display, controls, and real-time updates.

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP): The simulation is structured using OOP principles, with classes representing organisms, the environment, and food items.

AnimationTimer: Used to create a continuous simulation loop that updates the positions and states of organisms in real-time.