Boids and Coffee

Boids and Coffee was developed during the "Next Reality" seminar, supervised by Prof. Stefan Neudecker and Clemens Kujawski. The focus was on Unity and C# coding, culminating in a project deployed on the Microsoft HoloLens 2. My goal was to explore Boid-based swarm intelligence programming and adapt swarm behavior to spatial conditions.

Boids, a concept from Craig Reynolds' 1980s research, simulate bird flocking through three simple rules: Separation: Avoid overcrowding. Alignment: Match the movement of nearby Boids. Cohesion: Move toward the group's center.

In this project, a swarm of simple, blocky Boids obsessively follows a coffee cup in a virtual environment. The scene features a monolith with the cup on top, surrounded by cubes and a sphere. The cup can be picked up and moved, influencing the swarm’s behavior.

In 2025, I began porting the project to the Quest 3, prioritizing functionality and interaction over aesthetics, which deliberately have a rough, "trashy" look. The title humorously references the "Cats and Coffee" trend. The coffee cup can be picked up with both hands, while two chairs can be rotated and moved along the X and Z axes.