Pattern of the Year

The Pattern of the Year (POTY) competition is held each year on the ConwayLife.com forums. Users are invited to submit interesting and noteworthy patterns, their own or others'; following discussion, a final list is then curated, and a public vote held. There are only two hard and fast rules: patterns must have been discovered in the year in question; and patterns must work in B3/S23 (Conway's Game of Life).

In 2020/2021, the Pattern of the Decade (POTD) competition is also being held in which users vote on the most noteworthy patterns discovered between 2010 and 2019.

Summary

Year	First place	Second place	Third place
2020	Bandersnatch Speed Demonoid†		Spaceship glider syntheses
2019	David Hilbert	Spider synthesis	Scholar
2018	Sir Robin	0E0P metacell	Reverse caber-tosser
2017	2-engine Cordership	Tanner's p46	Stable pulse-dividers
2016	Caterloopillars	Copperhead	Grandfather-less Pattern
2015	Syringe	Simkin glider gun	Demonoids
2014	Waterbear	Centipede	Half-baked knightship
2013	Snark	Loafer	CC semi-Snark Linear propagator†
2011	Fully universal Turing machine Lobster†		Garden of Eden 6
2010	Gemini	Phi calculator	c/5 diagonal rake
2004	Caterpillar‡

‡ Result of informal consensus rather than formal competition;

† Patterns were tied on number of votes.

Results by year

2020

Entries • Voting • Results

The following patterns were voted on for the 2020 competition. Users were able to vote on as many patterns as they wished, awarding up to three stars to each one. MathAndCode organized the competition.

Final rank	Stars	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	76	Bandersnatch	Martin Grant and Entity Valkyrie	[1]
A color-changing glider-to-glider conduit, which can be used to solve glider color mismatches.
1	76	Speed Demonoid	Pavel Grankovskiy, Dave Greene, Tanner Jacobi, and Goldtiger997
A self-constructing diagonal spaceship with speed limit c/4 due to using a crab wickstretcher.
3	69	Spaceship glider syntheses	Goldtiger997, Tanner Jacobi, Martin Grant, et al.	[2]
Glider syntheses for 56P6H1V0, 58P5H1V1, turtle, 31P8H4V0, 44P5H2V0, 70P2H1V0.1, 55P9H3V0, and 44P5H2V0, many of which were the first of their unsymplified speed to be synthesized.
4	68	Smaller 3c/7 spaceships	Dylan Chen
Anura and Soba, the second and third known elementary 3c/7 spaceships, both of which are smaller than the first known 3c/7 spaceship, spaghetti monster.
4	68	Rob's p16	Rob Liston
A useful sparker, as well as the smallest-known and first strictly volatile oscillator of its period, found when it occurred in the ash of an asymmetric Catagolue soup.
6	65	Period-28 glider gun	Matthias Merzenich and Paul Callahan
The first true period-28 gun.
7	64	Silverfish	Chris Cain, Dave Greene, Adam P. Goucher, and Nathaniel Johnston
A new smallest spaceship to use the 31c/240 Herschel climber.
8	61	Cheaper fixed-cost universal construction	Chris Cain, Adam P. Goucher, and MathAndCode	[3]
Reductions in the cost of reverse caber-tosser-based universal construction by figuring out how to split a target block with gliders instead of needing to use a block-laying switch engine, removing the need for a Sakapuffer, and reducing the number of glider-producing switch enginges required in the circuitry.
9	58	19-bit still life syntheses	Jeremy Tan, Dave Greene, Tanner Jacobi, Goldtiger997, Martin Grant, Alex Greason, BlinkerSpawn, et al.
Glider syntheses for all 19-bit still lifes.
10	56	New 2c/7 technology	John Winston Garth, Andrew J. Wade
Two new 2c/7 spaceships, 186P7H2V0 and doo-dah used to help make puffers and rakes.
10	56	Natural loafers	John Goodman, Rob Liston, Adam P. Goucher	[4]
Catagolue soups in the C1 and G1 symmetries that produce the twenty-cell loafer, making it the first spaceship not at the maximum speed for its direction to be found in a random asymmetric soup in B3/S23.
12	55	Stable barge crosser	Goldtiger997	[5]
A way to transmit a glider signal across an infinitely long barge without permanently damaging it.
13	50	New grayship technology	Keith Amling, Hartmut Holzwart, and Matthias Merzenich	[6]
A large collection of new grayship components of varying speeds.
14	46	Beehive push catalyst	Tanner Jacobi	[7]
A stable catalyst that allows the beehive push reaction, where a beehive affects an active region while being displaced by one cell orthogonally, to be used repeatedly in situations where there is not another synchronized mechanism to push it back, such as in conduits.
15	45	New longest-lasting 16x16 methuselah	Rob Liston and Goldtiger997
An asymmetric 16x16 soup found with Catagolue that takes longer to stabilize than any previous asymmetric non-infinite-growth 16x16 soup, and a related 16x16 pattern that takes one generation longer to form generation five of said random soup.
16	44	New c/5 diagonal spaceships	AforAmpere, Sarp, Aidan F. Pierce, John Winston Garth, and Dylan Chen	[8]
Several new c/5 diagonal spaceships of varying shapes.
17	43	Small c/5 diagonal puffer	Peter Naszvadi	[9]
An elegant period-1540 c/5 diagonal puffer that uses only three copies of 58P5H1V1.
18	42	New small Corderships	wwei23 and Ian07
Several new three-engine and four-engine Corderships found using a custom apgsearch symmetry.
19	41	New agar crawler/agar bubble/skimmer/agar clearer technology	Arie Paap, Keith Amling, Hartmut Holzwart, et al.	[10]
Mechanisms to add, remove, travel along, or travel within agar.
19	41	c/5 and c/6 guns	Entity Valkyrie, Goldtiger997, et al.	[11]
The first known guns for c/5 orthogonal, c/5 diagonal, and c/6 orthogonal spaceships.
21	39	New exotic spaceship eaters and spaceship-to-G converters	Jeremy Tan, Luka Okanishi, Dave Greene, Adam P. Goucher, Tanner Jacobi, Aidan F. Pierce, et al.	[12]
New mechanisms to eat spaceships or turn them into glider signals
21	39	Glider syntheses from Glider_stdin	testitemqlstudop, Tanner Jacobi, Arie Paap, GUYTU6J, goldenratio, et al.	[13]
Glider syntheses based on a result from a custom Catagolue symmetry where gliders are fired at each other in a random configuration.
21	39	Period-9 heavyweight sparker and associated R shuttle	wwei23, Aidan F. Pierce, and David Raucci
Period-nine domino sparker that has two dot sparks displaced (2.5, 1) from the center of the domino spark, making it a heavyweight emulator, and has better clearance than the previous known period-nine domino sparker, allowing it and an eater 2 to form a periodic RFx9R conduit that can be attached to another copy of itself to form a shuttle
24	38	Stable L122	Aidan F. Pierce
A stable version of the L122 conduit, which previously only had periodic versions.
25	35	New c/10 orthogonal technology	Christoph Reinthaler	[14]
Arrangements of copperheads and fireships that perform various tasks, such as firing a stream of loafers backwards.
26	34	New XWSS signal technology	Dave Greene, Adam P. Goucher, and Goldtiger997	[15]
Improved mechanisms for detecting XWSS signals.
26	34	Cordercolumn and extruder	wwei23, Luka Okanishi, and Ian07	[16]
Two ways to stabilize a switch engine with another switch engine behind it and an extruder that emits a line of switch engines using one of the methods.
26	34	New c/6 diagonal pushalong	Aidan F. Pierce	[17]
The first new piece of low-period c/6 diagonal technology in 9 years.
26	34	Better universal regulator	Louis-François Handfield	[18]
A device that can align a set of input glider signals with no period constraints to any output period greater than 73 that is smaller and faster than any previous universal regulator.
26	34	c/61 near-spaceship and slide gun support	Tanner Jacobi and Goldtiger997	[19]
A reaction consisting of a pulsar interacting with two blocks that results in the same confirmation 61 generations later shifted by one cell orthogonally if supplied with two dot sparks or certain fishhook-type interactions, which can be provided with gliders from slide guns.
31	33	Record-setting diehards	Rob Liston, goldenratio, and Moth Wingthane	[20]
Patterns found from soup searches searches that take longer to settle without leaving any ash than any previously known patterns fitting in a bounding box of the same size.
31	33	4×N block agar construction	Goldtiger997	[21]
A way to extend the pseudo still life consisting of a 4×3 rectangle of blocks to a 4×N rectangle for arbitrarily high N using gliders.
31	33	Width-12 c/6 orthogonal spaceship	Andrew J. Wade
The first width-12 asymmetric c/6 orthogonal spaceship, which has the minimum possible width for a asymmetric period-6 spaceship of this speed.
34	32	Loafer bitmap printer	otismo	[22]
A collection of loafer guns that can be toggled by a glider memory tape to produce a message in loafer-pixels.
35	30	34-bit still life enumeration	Nathaniel Johnston	[23]
An enumeration of all 34-bit still lifes and pseudo still lifes, which confirmed that the quad pseudo still life is the unique 34-bit pseudo still life requiring a decomposition into 4 or more pieces.
36	27	p5 drifter-like catalyst/lightweight volcano/periodic catalyst	wwei23 and Dongook Lee	[24]
An oscillator that periodically creates then kills via overpopulation a "block face", allowing it to be used to perturb regions in the same manner as several catalysts without permanently harming the oscillator.
37	26	New growing spaceships	Matthias Merzenich and Aidan F. Pierce	[25]
Patterns in which spaceships create a wick that is consumed at a slower speed than it is created at.
38	25	Period-10 glider shuttle	Martin Grant	[26]
The lowest known period for a glider shuttle.
39	23	Extensible LoM hasslers	JP21, wwei23, and Matthias Merzenich	[27]
Extensible oscillators based on lumps of muck .

Pattern of the Decade (2010s)

Entries

The Pattern of the Decade competition for the 2010s is currently taking place, and is being organized by testitemqlstudop. All top-three winners from each previous Pattern of the Year competition during the 2010s are automatically added to the nomination list. It is unknown when nominations end for this competition. The results will be posted both on the wiki and on the forums when voting is complete.

2019

Entries • Voting • Results

The following patterns were voted on for the 2019 competition. Users were able to vote on as many patterns as they wished, awarding up to three stars to each one. testitemqlstudop organized the competition.

Final rank	Stars	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	74	David Hilbert	Luka Okanishi, Aidan F. Pierce	[28]
The first period-23 oscillator discovered.
2	66	Spider synthesis	Martin Grant, Goldtiger997, Tanner Jacobi, et al.	[29] [30] [31]
The first glider synthesis of a c/5 orthogonal spaceship, and the largest elementary spaceship synthesis to date.
3	53	Scholar	Andrew J. Wade	[32]
The second elementary 2c/7 orthogonal spaceship to be discovered, using a new search program named life_slice_ship_search.
=4	48	46P4H1V0 synthesis and gun	Tanner Jacobi, Matthias Merzenich, Martin Grant, Goldtiger997	[33] [34] [35]
The first synthesis and the first gun to produce a c/4 orthogonal spaceship.
=4	48	Cheap still life syntheses	Tanner Jacobi, Goldtiger997, Jeremy Tan, Adam P. Goucher, Chris Cain, 2718281828, et al.	[36] [37] [38] [39]
Among other things, the construction of all 17-bit still lifes in at most 16 gliders (less than one glider per bit) and all 18-bit still lifes in at most 38 gliders.
=6	45	Knightwave stablization	Matthias Merzenich, Adam P. Goucher	[40]
The discovery that Minstrel 2 can be used to support both ends of the knightwave, allowing for extensible knightships.
=6	45	Remini	Michael Simkin	[41]
A universal constructor-based puffer, made only with p30 technology theoretically available since the 1970s.
8	41	Dueling banjos and p24 gun	Apple Bottom, Tanner Jacobi, Matthias Merzenich, et al.	[42] [43] [44]
A new period-24 oscillator and resulting compact p24 gun.
9	39	Slavic	Pavel Grankovskiy	[45]
The current smallest universal-constructor based quadratic growth pattern.
=10	37	27P4H1V1 synthesis and gun	Goldtiger997, BlinkerSpawn, Entity Valkyrie, et al.	[46] [47]
=10	37	Stable glider-to-spaceship converters	Goldtiger997	[48] [49] [50]
Stable patterns that convert gliders into small synthesizable spaceships (crab, 25P3H1V0.2, 27P4H1V1).
12	36	66P13	Bullet51, Aidan F. Pierce, et al.	[51] [52] [53]
A sparky period-13 oscillator which can support wicks, bumpers, and p26 oscillators.
13	35	p49 skewed pulsar hassler	Martin Grant, Jason Summers	[54]
The first known p49 oscillator that is not a glider loop.
=14	34	Phoenix agars	Alex Greason, BlinkerSpawn, Dongook Lee, and Arie Paap	[55] [56] [57]
Oscillating patterns living on a period-2 phoenix background that emulate some bounded Rule 18 patterns.
=14	34	60-line c/10 printer	GilGil	[58]
An easy-to-use c/10 orthogonal printer that can copy and print a picture 60 lines tall.
=16	33	R49	Entity Valkyrie, Luka Okanishi	[59]
A useful and compact pre-Herschel turner/advancer conduit.
=16	33	New gun designs	Tanner Jacobi	[60] [61]
Clever new gun components that allow the reduction of a large number of glider guns in the small guns collection.
=16	33	Systematic survey of small patterns	Nick Gotts	[62] [63] [64]
A systematic survey of all patterns up to 9 cells, as well as a survey of all single-cluster 10-cell patterns resulting in the discovery of two record-breaking 10-celled methuselae, bunnies 10a and bunnies 10b.
=19	32	99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall	Michael Simkin	[65]
A pattern that prints the song "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall."
=19	32	Spaghetti monster eater and Heisenburp	Martin Grant, Goldtiger997	[66] [67]
The first patterns capable of cleanly deleting and detecting a 3c/7 orthogonal spaceship.
21	29	47575M	Adam P. Goucher	[68]
A record-breaking methuselah (excluding switch engine-based methuselahs) found with apgsearch.
22	27	Mountain range patterns	Dean Hickerson	[69]
Various patterns experiencing irregular growth due to complex glider interactions in a similar vein to jagged lines.
=23	26	New mid-period sparkers	2718281828, Aidan F. Pierce, Martin Grant, Dongook Lee	[70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76]
=23	26	Stably supported cyclotron gun	Goldtiger997, Paul Callahan, Adam P. Goucher	[77]
A modification of Dean Hickerson's cyclotron which uses only stable components.
25	25	230P8	Arie Paap	[78]
A high-clearance p8 domino sparker that can be used to create a p32 phase shift oscillator.
26	23	p250 c/10 orthogonal rake	christoph.r	[79]
The lowest-period c/10 orthogonal rake constructed to date.
27	19	Hackersaw	Gustone	[80]
A logarithmic-growth pattern with a sawtooth-shaped population graph.

2018

Entries • Voting • Results

The following patterns were voted on for the 2018 competition. Users were able to vote on as many patterns as they wished, awarding up to three stars to each one. 77topaz organized the competition.

Final rank	Stars	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	106	Sir Robin	Adam P. Goucher, Tomas Rokicki	[81]
A (2,1)c/6 spaceship, and the first elementary oblique spaceship discovered in Conway's Game of Life.
2	90	0E0P metacell	Adam P. Goucher	[82]
A unit cell which does not require a background grid of metacells to function, proving the existence of unusual classes of patterns such as quadratic replicators and RROs in Conway's Game of Life "imported" from other rules.
3	79	Reverse caber-tosser	Adam P. Goucher, Dave Greene, Chris Cain	[83]
A complex mechanism which theoretically allows any glider-synthesisable pattern to be synthesised in just 35 gliders, by encoding the pattern's complexity into the distance between the gliders rather than their quantity.
4	52	Turing Machine simulator	Michael Simkin	[84]
A script which can simulate arbitrary Turing machines in Conway's Game of Life using a finite tape.
5	45	Camelship	Chris Cain	[85]
A self-constructing oblique spaceship with the minimum possible step size for a slope 3 spaceship.
=6	41	New self-constructing spaceships	Dave Greene	[86]
A loopship, along with HashLife-friendly variants of Orthogonoid and Demonoid.
=6	41	c/2 diagonal telegraph recipe	Martin Grant	[87]
A 140-glider recipe to create a detectable c/2 diagonal signal traveling non-destructively along an arbitrarily long barge or ship.
8	35	Period-52 glider gun	Dave Greene, Matthias Merzenich, Adam P. Goucher, Chris Cain, Entity Valkyrie	[88] [89] [90]
The first true-period 52 gun constructed, which was later vastly reduced using 53P13.
9	34	Stable line crosser	Dave Greene, Goldtiger997, Chris Cain	[91]
A modernized rehash of a periodic circuit for transmitting a glider across a diagonal line of cells found by David Bell.
=10	33	Jormungant's G-to-H	Louis-François Handfield (Jormungant)	[92]
A 2G-to-H converter with a short recovery time, allowing for the optimization of numerous guns.
=10	33	Period-33 glider gun	Arie Paap, Matthias Merzenich	[93]
The first true-period 33 gun, which uses two interacting copies of Jason's p33.
=10	33	Infinite distinct diagonal spaceships and infinite distinct orthogonal spaceships	Adam P. Goucher, Goldtiger997	[94] [95]
Two guns which each use sqrtgun mechanisms to fire infinitely many distinct spaceships, all of which are puffers whose outputs are eaten by spaceships arbitrarily far away.
=13	31	Sierpinski triangle generator	Luka Okanishi	[96]
A breeder that outputs gliders in the shape of a growing Sierpinski triangle.
=13	31	Cottonmouth	AforAmpere	[97]
An infinitely extensible pushalong for the copperhead and fireship.
=13	31	5c/9 signal injector	Rhombic, Simon Ekström, Chris Cain	[98]
A method of transforming Herschels to 5c/9 drifters with a recovery time of 62.
16	30	p46 gliderless LWSS gun	Nathaniel Johnston	[99]
The smallest known gliderless LWSS gun, using three copies of Tanner's p46.
=17	29	Bronco	Tanner Jacobi	[100]
The second elementary glider-to-Herschel converter to be discovered.
=17	29	New high-period oscillators	carybe	[101] [102] [103] [104]
A collective entry for p36 shuttle, 34P14 shuttle, 68P16, and p64 thunderbird hassler, all discovered using apgsearch.
19	28	Quinti-Snarks	Tanner Jacobi	[105]
Period-quintupling reflectors useful for guns.
20	27	Pseudo-period xWSS guns	Chris Cain, Adam P. Goucher, Entity Valkyrie, 2718281828, Goldtiger997	[106]
New xWSS guns with pseudo-periods ranging from 18 to 21, breaking the previous record of 22.
21	26	Self-constructing oscillator with strict volatility one	Dave Greene, Goldtiger997	[107]
A method of constructing strictly volatile oscillators with any period 3,506,910 or above.
22	25	p3 bumper	Arie Paap, Tanner Jacobi	[108]
A periodic reflector to work at p39, which also allowed for the construction of a p57 bumper loop
=23	24	Goldtiger997's Amazing 2 in 1 Reusable Multipurpose Minstrel Remover and Detector™	Goldtiger997	[109]
A circuit capable of removing every known Minstrel from Sir Robin at the time of its construction.
=23	24	New mid-period sparkers	Dongook Lee, Josh Ball, Martin Grant, Aidan F. Pierce, carybe, Bullet51	[110] [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117]
A collective entry for various sparking oscillators with periods ranging from 7 to 10, including but not limited to 68P9 and 55P10.
=25	23	Minstrel 4	Entity Valkyrie	[118]
A manually-assembled Sir Robin tagalong which combines Minstrels 1 and 3.
=25	23	Period-doubling fireship tagalong	christoph.r	[119]
A tagalong for a flotilla of three fireships which increases its period to 20.
27	22	p4 bouncer	Arie Paap, Noam Elkies	[120]
The fastest known p4 reflector.
28	21	Huge 2D-extensible wick-supporting pushalong	Hartmut Holzwart	[121]
29	20	Non-monotonic 2c/5 orthogonal spaceship	Arie Paap, Matthias Merzenich, Bullet51	[122]
=30	19	p9 bouncer	Matthias Merzenich, carybe, Noam Elkies	[123]
A reflector capable of reflecting a p27 glider stream using 68P9, which was found using apgsearch the same day.
=30	19	p6 180-degree reflector and related guns	Arie Paap, Tanner Jacobi, Louis-François Handfield	[124] [125]
A reflector which can be used alongside other sparkers to create arbitrary guns with period (60n+30).
32	18	Fast universal regulators	Dave Greene	[126]
33	17	42883M	Adam P. Goucher	[127]
A 16×16 soup found by apgsearch, and the longest-lasting known methuselah fitting within a 16×16 bounding box.
34	10	New honey farm hasslers	Tanner Jacobi, Matthias Merzenich	[128] [129] [130]
A collective entry for a few oscillators of periods 36 and 40 which use honey farm-hassling reactions.

2017

Entries • Voting • Results

The following patterns were voted on for the 2017 competition. Users were able to vote on as many patterns as they wished, awarding up to three stars to each one. Adam P. Goucher organized the competition.

Final rank	Stars	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	50	2-engine Cordership	Aidan F. Pierce	[131]
A successful refutation of the common belief that 3 engines are required to build a Cordership.
2	34	Tanner's p46	Tanner Jacobi	[132]
A new sparky period-46 oscillator that various guns can be made from.
3	32	Stable pulse-dividers	Tanner Jacobi	[133] [134] [135]
The Snark and semi-Snark have been joined by new exciting tremi-Snark, quadri-Snark, and semi-cenarks, which are particularly helpful for optimising glider and spaceship guns.
4	29	New Demonoid and Orthogonoid spaceships	Dave Greene, slmake	[136] [137]
Geminoid variants which travel diagonally and orthogonally, respectively, showcasing interesting developments such as MWSS-based signalling and syringe syntheses.
5	27	The efficient 16-bit still life synthesis project	Chris Cain, BlinkerSpawn, Luka Okanishi, Martin Grant, Matthias Merzenich, Bob Shemyakin, et al.	[138] [139]
All still-lifes of 16 or fewer cells can be constructed at a cost of <= 1 glider per cell.
6	26	Synthesis of 25P3H1V0.2, and reductions of many other small spaceships	Martin Grant, Chris Cain, 2718281828, gmc_nxtman, et al.	[140] [141] [142] [143]
=7	24	Sparse Cordership	David Bell	[144]
All previously-known Corderships required interactions between two or more adjacent switch engines. This design, on the other hand, allows the individual switch engines to be separated by arbitrary distances, relying instead on long-range interactions mediated by gliders and stable objects.
=7	24	Hydra	Oscar Cunningham, Dave Greene, slmake	[145]
A single-channel quadratic-growth pattern which constructs an intricate mesh of splitting construction heads in all directions. Some well-positioned eaters prevent this behemoth from cannibalising itself. It uses similar technology to Dave's earlier triple wickstretcher, but is more complex owing to the necessity of splitting signals.
9	22	Three-glider synthesis of a switch engine	Luka Okanishi	[146]
It was previously believed that 4 gliders were necessary and sufficient to synthesise a switch engine.
10	21	Synthesis of N-bit still lifes in 38 to 39 gliders	Tanner Jacobi, Adam P. Goucher, Chris Cain	[147] [148]
Syntheses of N-bit still lifes for all sufficiently large natural numbers N, using a bounded number of gliders (38 or 39, depending on the parity of N).
11	18	Life object having a bounded population with an unknown fate	David Bell	[149]
A pattern which either becomes stable, oscillatory, or aperiodic, depending on the behaviour of 7 under the generalised Collatz iteration which maps a positive integer N to 5N+1 (if N odd) or N/2 (if N even).
=12	17	Completed Quest for Tetris challenge	PhiNotPi, El'endia Starman, K Zhang, Muddyfish, Kritixi Lithos, Mego, Quartata, et al.	[150]
A game of Tetris simulated on a digital computer built out of logic gates formed from Brice Due's metacells.
=12	17	Gliderless unit cell	Peter Naszvadi	[151]
A cellular automata polyglot (pattern which runs in a range of rules) based on p46 technology, establishing Turing-completeness of B3[8]/S23[8] provided infinite patterns are permitted.
=12	17	Garden of Eden 11	Steven Eker	[152]
An orphan with 45 live cells and 43 dead cells, the fewest total number of specified cells among all known orphans.
15	16	Several new stable signal converters	Dave Greene, Goldtiger997	[153]
16	15	339P7H1V0	Matthias Merzenich	[154]
The narrowest odd-symmetric c/7 spaceship, and the second known elementary c/7 spaceship, after the loafer.
17	14	Much smaller spiral growth pattern	Dave Greene, slmake	[155]
A tightly-coiled loop of data reflected in a double-spiral of Snarks instructs a construction arm to encircle the construction indefinitely, gradually constructing an unbounded spiral of further Snarks.
18	13	p148 B29 gun	Luka Okanishi, Dave Greene, Adam P. Goucher	[156]
A compact gun for a c/4 diagonal spaceship.
=19	12	Cumulative sum generator	gameoflifeboy	[157]
=19	12	Triple wickstretcher	Dave Greene	[158]
A single-channel glider loop which extends zigzags of Snarks.
=19	12	The first 3c/7 orthogonal puffer	Luka Okanishi	[159]
Exclusively using 3c/7 spaghetti monsters (the only known spaceship of its velocity). Owing to its faster-than-c/4 speed, a c/2 spaceship is necessary to catch up with the front of the engine to continue the reaction.
22	11	The first c/6 orthogonal puffers	Nico Brown, Matthias Merzenich	[160]
Messy albeit elegant puffers where gliders collide with large sparky spaceships in perpetuity.
23	9	Fixed-length tail for a lightspeed bubble of arbitrary width in the zebra stripes agar	Arie Paap	[161]
Gabriel Nivasch showed that arbitrary-width lightspeed bubbles in the zebra stripes agar are supportable, requiring a fixed-length head and variable-length tail. It was hitherto an open problem to replace the variable-length tail with a fixed-length counterpart.
24	7	28P7.3	Bullet51	[162]
The smallest known (tied with previous record) period-7 oscillator.
25	6	Runny nose	83bismuth38	[163]
A period-3 oscillator which showed an unexpected gap in lists of small objects.

2016

Entries • Voting • Results

The following patterns were voted on for the 2016 competition. Users were able to vote on as many patterns as they wished, awarding up to three stars to each one. Alexey Nigin organized the competition.

Final rank	Stars	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	49	Caterloopillars	Michael Simkin, David Bell et al.	[164]
Previously, all engineered spaceships had speeds that were either fixed (Caterpillar) or adjustable but always very low (Gemini). Caterloopillars have the best of both worlds: their speed is variable, and the fastest ones can travel as quickly as c/4. So far all caterloopillars have been orthogonal, but a project to build one with adjustable slope is underway.
2	47	Copperhead	zdr, Simon Ekström et al.	[165] [166]
In addition to being the first of its speed, this c/10 orthogonal spaceship is so small that it is surprising nobody discovered it before. Its small size allowed the creation of a 22-glider synthesis, and a gun was made soon afterwards. A pseudo-tagalong known as the fireship found a bit later made it possible to create c/10 puffers and rakes. Much of copperhead's fame is due to the mystery surrounding its discovery: it was posted by a newly-joined anonymous user who became inactive afterwards.
3	39	Grandfather-less Pattern	mtve	[167]
"Is there a configuration which has a father but no grandfather?" This is the statement of the grandfather problem, one of the longest-standing open problems in Life, having been unsolved for decades in spite of a $50 prize offer from John Conway Himself in September 1972. It was only this year that the first grandfather-less pattern was discovered using a SAT solver.
4	31	Spaghetti monster	Tim Coe	[168]
This is the first spaceship with a speed of 3c/7, which has been one of the most sought-after speeds in the last 15 years. The ship was discovered with knightt, a relatively new search program. The search took about two months, even though the width was continuously tweaked to make it faster.
5	28	8-bit computer	Coban	[169]
This is the first 8-bit computer in any cellular automaton, and easily the most realistic computer ever constructed in Life. It has a ROM which contains the program, consisting of 32 instructions which are stored in 21 bits each. For RAM, it has a register bank containing eight 8-bit registers. For output, it has a "printer" with 8 pixels.
6	19	Herschel splitter	Luka Okanishi	[170]
This is an elegant solution to an old circuitry problem: a direct Herschel signal splitter that recovers in less than a hundred ticks. People had been looking for something exactly like this for very nearly twenty years, ever since the original 1996-97 universal set of Herschel conduits. It was made by extending an Fx119 conduit with a partial copy of itself to extract the second Herschel output.
7	14	Bumper	Tanner Jacobi	[171]
This reflector mechanism can be attached to a variety of sparky oscillators to make reflectors of the corresponding periods. Since the resulting reflectors have different timing than the Snark, they solve a range of "my glider is in the wrong phase" wiring problems. A small wave of record-breaking guns followed soon after the bumper's debut.
=8	12	New gun periods	Luka Okanishi, thunk, Matthias Merzenich, Chris Cain	[172] [173] [174]
In three days, three new true gun periods were discovered: p61, p58, and p57.
=8	12	Statorless p5	Josh Ball	[175]
This is the first statorless oscillator of its period. Since the period is prime, the lack of stator implies that the oscillator is strictly volatile, which is a rare property.
10	11	Aperiodic tiles	NotLiving	[176]
This is an implementation of a particular set of [Wang tiles] in the Game of Life. The Life tiles form a stable pattern if and only if the corresponding arrangement of Wang tiles is valid. Since this set of Wang tiles can only form aperiodic arrangements, so can the Life tiles.
11	10	Rich's p16	Rich Holmes	[177]
This is a small p16 oscillator that appeared naturally. It is compact for its period and has easily accessible sparks. Most notably, it can filter glider streams similarly to the blocker, which led to reductions in many guns that previously utilized other filter mechanisms.
12	9	Small GoEs	Steven Eker	[178] [179]
A few record-breaking Gardens of Eden and orphans were found, including an orphan with only 89 defined cells.
=13	6	15-bit still life syntheses	BlinkerSpawn, Goldtiger997, Bob Shemyakin, Mark Niemiec, Martin Grant, Chris Cain, et al.	[180] [181]
A project to find syntheses of all 15-bit still lifes in under 15 gliders turned out to be a very prolific collaboration. Using Catagolue soups along with known and new converter mechanisms, several hundred new syntheses were created. The goal was achieved in just 41 days.
=13	6	p7 sparker	Dongook Lee	[182]
This pattern adds a new relatively strong heavyweight emulator to the p7 collection, which previously only had the pipsquirter. It was used to complete a p28 wick with no prior stabilization.

2015

Entries • Voting • Results

The following patterns were voted on for the 2015 competition. Users chose as many pattern as they wanted and ranked them from best to worst; the votes were then tallied with a custom Delphi program. Alexey Nigin organized the competition.

Final rank	Points	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	107	Syringe	Tanner Jacobi	[183]
Syringe is the fast G-to-H that Herschel plumbers have been wishing for a decade, also allowing for fast signal splitters and other much more efficient logic circuits, including self-constructing circuitry.
2	102	Simkin glider gun	Michael Simkin	[184]
The Simkin glider gun is the smallest gun ever constructed. The previous record holder, the Gosper glider gun, was constructed as long ago as 1970.
3	91	Demonoids	Chris Cain and Dave Greene	[185] [186]
Demonoids are highly-simplified, diagonally-moving variants of the original Gemini spaceship. The 0hd Demonoid is the only case where a spaceship gun pattern was completed before the actual spaceship.
4	55	Syntheses of spaceships	Martin Grant, Tanner Jacobi, and Chris Cain	[187] [188] [189] [190] [191] [192] [193] [194] [195]
Syntheses of B29, X66, half-X66 with HWSS, Pushalong 1, 25P3H1V0.2, 30P5H2V0, 30P4H2V0.4, a pufferfish spaceship, and the weekender were discovered in 2015, which exceeds the number of spaceship syntheses found in any previous year, including 1970.
5	48	Recursive filter	Alexey Nigin and Kiran Linsuain	[196]
Recursive Filter allows the creation of extremely slow-growing patterns. A single recursive filter gives the growth rate of log*(t), which is slower than the growth rate of any pattern constructed before. Recursive filters can be stacked to obtain even more mind-boggling growth rates.
6	45	Glider-to-Weekender	Chris Cain	[197]
G-to-Weekender splits a single input glider into 82 separate signals, and successfully synchronizes them to produce an output weekender spaceship. The previous record synchronization was Goucher's glider-to-Cordership converter, which produced 19 synchronized gliders from one input signal.
7	34	Bob Shemyakin's syntheses	Bob Shemyakin	[198]
Bob Shemyakin's syntheses are often cheaper than what could be found in Mark Niemiec's database (and those were already pretty good). This was the result of a lot of patient script-writing and collecting collision results, starting with adding two gliders (within a certain range) to every possible two-glider collision. Many new 4-, 5-, and 6-glider still life recipes were found, and optimizations for many larger still lifes up to 15 bits.
8	33	HBK gun	Chris Cain and Michael Simkin	[199]
HBK gun is an extremely large and complex gun that fires parallel HBKs. It is the only gun to produce non-self-constructing macro-spaceships.
9	31	Herschel-to-MWSS	Tanner Jacobi	[200]
H-to-MWSS is the smallest converter of Herschels into (non-glider) standard spaceships. Prior constructions of XWSSs required many Herschel tracks and a large area.
10	30	Sawtooth 177	thunk, Tanner Jacobi, Chris Cain, Adam P. Goucher, and Dave Greene	[201]
Sawtooth 177 is currently the smallest known sawtooth.
11	29	Single-lane construction arm toolkit	Simon Ekström	[202]
The Single-Lane Construction Arm Toolkit is an important result for simplifying self-constructing circuitry, especially those where a recipe needs to be duplicated, as in the linear propagator, not just interpreted as in the Demonoid and Gemini.
12	28	Elementary conduits collection	Matthias Merzenich, Dave Greene, and thunk	[203]
The Elementary Conduits Collection, recently significantly expanded with new discoveries, is a one-stop shop for the building blocks of stable tracks. It was organized to catalogue all converters between likely active reactions, not just from Herschel to Herschel.
13	26	(L|M)WSS-to-glider	Ivan Fomichev and Dongook Lee	[204]
(L|M)WSS-to-G is the second known small conduit that turns standard spaceships into gliders, and the first that accepts LWSSs.
14	23	Collection of guns	Chris Cain, Simon Ekström, Scot Ellison, and Dave Greene	[205]
The Collection of Guns is an ambitious project to collect new smaller glider guns using the syringe and other recent discoveries. All guns in the range 78-999 were eventually reduced to bounding boxes less than 8000 cells.
15	19	Dragon lightsaber	Martin Grant	[206]
Dragon Lightsaber is a mysterious pattern that seems to calculate some sequence. It is this type of a lightsaber.
16	14	Quadratic sawtooth	Martin Grant, Aidan F. Pierce, Dongook Lee, and Alexey Nigin	[207]
Quadratic sawtooth is a sawtooth whose population peaks grow quadratically.
17	13	t*log(log(t)) growth	Alexey Nigin and Michael Simkin	[208]
t*log(log(t)) growth is pattern with an exotic growth rate. That growth rate has long been achievable via exponential filters, but this pattern utilizes a completely different design.

2014

Initial entries • Belated entries • Belated voting • Results

The following patterns were submitted as competition entries by users in early 2016. Patterns were not voted on at the time, but a belated vote was held in early 2018, featuring three further submissions in addition to the original nine. Kiran Linsuain organized the 2016 competition; 77topaz organized the 2018 vote.

Final rank	Stars	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	30	Waterbear	Brett Berger and Ivan Fomichev	[209]
The first fast oblique spaceship, moving at speed (23,5)c/79.
2	23	Centipede	Chris Cain	[210]
A large, engineered spaceship that moves at 31c/240, using a unique reaction.
3	21	Half-baked knightship	Adam P. Goucher, Chris Cain, Dave Greene, and Ivan Fomichev	[211]
An oblique spaceship that moves with displacement (6,3), using the half-bakery reaction.
=4	17	Switch engine ping-pong	Michael Simkin	[212]
A 23-cell quadratic growth pattern, the smallest known.
=4	17	Syntheses for all 17- and 18-bit still lifes	Martin Grant, Mark Niemiec, and Matthias Merzenich	[213] [214]
Note: Some of the 18-bit syntheses were later found to be invalid, and the project was not completed for real until 2019.
=6	13	Pufferfish	Richard Schank	[215]
A period 12 c/2 puffer that was used to make the first wholly high-period c/2 spaceship.
=6	13	Spiral growth	Dave Greene	[216]
A self-constructing pattern that grows in an outward spiral.
=8	12	Dart and crab syntheses	Martin Grant, Mark Niemiec, Michael Simkin, Ivan Fomichev, Tanner Jacobi, and Brett Berger	[217] [218]
Glider syntheses for small spaceships that did not previously have any.
=8	12	Weekender distaff	Ivan Fomichev	[219]
The first 2c/7 orthogonal rake, consisting of a long chain of weekenders perturbing debris.
10	8	Honey thieves†	Matthias Merzenich	[220]
The smallest known period-17 oscillator, and the first one with a known glider synthesis.
11	7	p27 billiard table oscillator†	Matthias Merzenich	[221]
An oscillator in which period 5, period 8 and period 3 rotors phase shift each other.
12	6	LCM oscillators†	Noam Elkies	[222]
Oscillators featuring multiple rotors that interact in complicated ways.

^†not originally submitted in 2014.

2013

Entries • Voting • Results

No competition was initially held in 2013. However, it was mentioned in various places that the winner for 2013 was clearly Mike Playle's Snark, with no particular need for a formal vote. A belated vote was organized in early 2018 by 77topaz. The following patterns were submitted as competition entries by users.

Final rank	Stars	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	34	Snark	Mike Playle	[223]
A stable 90˚ glider reflector which, with 52 cells and a repeat time of 43, is both far smaller and far faster than previous such patterns.
2	31	Loafer	Josh Ball	[224]
The first c/7 orthogonal spaceship and, with just 20 cells, the smallest spaceship other than the glider and xWSSes.
=3	22	CC semi-Snark	Sergey Petrov	[225]
A small, Spartan 90˚ glider reflector which functions as a period doubler.
=3	22	Linear propagator	Dave Greene	[226]
A large, engineered pattern which is arguably the first example of a replicator in Conway's Game of Life, depending on the exact definition used.
5	17	Original 16-bit still life synthesis project	Martin Grant, Mark Niemiec, Matthias Merzenich, Dave Greene	[227]
A project to synthesize all 16-bit still lifes.
6	15	Period-20 glider gun	Matthias Merzenich	[228]
A true period-20 glider gun, the smallest true period known for a gun.
7	14	135-degree MWSS-to-G	Matthias Merzenich	[229]
The first fast elementary MWSS-to-glider converter.
8	11	Period-40 glider gun	Adam P. Goucher, Matthias Merzenich, Jason Summers	[230]
A true period-40 glider gun based on complicated reactions involving honey farm predecessors, period-5 and period-8 oscillators.
=9	9	AK-94 and Pre-pulsar shuttle 22	Mike Playle, Matthias Merzenich	[231] [232]
Two constructions based on a new catalyst found by Mike Playle.
=9	9	Standard spaceship eater	Matthias Merzenich	[233]
A still life capable of eating every type of standard spaceship.
=11	8	p29 reflector	Matthias Merzenich, Noam Elkies, David Buckingham	[234]
A reflector based on a Pre-pulsar shuttle 29 variant.
=11	8	c/4 diagonal wickstretcher	Matthias Merzenich, Jason Summers, Paul Tooke	[235]
A fencepost for a partial c/4 diagonal wickstretcher found by Paul Tooke in 2004.
13	7	c/5 orthogonal wickstretcher	Matthias Merzenich, Hartmut Holzwart, Jason Summers	[236]
The first c/5 orthogonal wickstretcher to be found.
14	5	French kiss synthesis	Martin Grant	[237]
A 23-glider synthesis for a period-3 oscillator which, despite its size, previously had no known synthesis.
=15	4	41P4H1V0	Jason Summers	[238]
At the time of its discovery, the second smallest known c/4 orthogonal spaceship.
=15	4	138P7	Karel Suhajda	[239]
A fairly strong period-7 sparker, at a time when few were known. It was used to create a period-14 traffic light hassler.

2012

Entries

No vote was held for 2012, but the following patterns were submitted as competition entries by users. 137ben organized the competition.

Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
37P4H1V0	Josh Ball	[240]
A 37-cell c/4 orthogonal spaceship by Josh Ball. In terms of minimum population, it is the smallest known c/4 orthogonal spaceship.
Statorless p3	Jason Summers	[241]
The first statorless period-3 oscillator.
444-tick glider-to-Herschel converter	Sergey Petrov	[242]
This is the fastest known stable glider-to-Herschel converter/90-degree glider reflector currently known.
G4 Herschel merge circuit	Sergey Petrov	[243] [244] [245]
Ambidextrous G5 Herschel transceiver	Sergey Petrov	[246] [247]
Period-4 90-degree reflector	Karel Suhajda, Matthias Merzenich	[248]

2011

Entries • Voting • Results

The following patterns were voted on for the 2011 competition. Users were able to vote for up to three patterns, but not their own patterns; all votes were weighted equally. Adam P. Goucher organized the competition.

Final rank	Votes	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
=1	10	Fully universal Turing machine	Paul Rendell	[249]
An extension of the Universal Turing machine and Turing machine, also by Paul Rendell.
=1	10	Lobster	Matthias Merzenich	[250]
A c/7 diagonal spaceship found using WinLifeSearch.
3	7	Garden of Eden 6	Marijn Heule, Christiaan Hartman, Kees Kwekkeboom, and Alain Noels	[251]
A small (10×10), rotationally symmetric garden of Eden whose orphan requires only 92 cells to specify.
=4	6	Collection of new stable technology	Sergey Petrov	[252] [253]
=4	6	Oblique antstretcher	Matthias Merzenich	[254]
An antstretcher combining a c/5 orthogonal component with a c/4 diagonal component previously found by Hartmut Holzwart in 2006.
=6	5	1×N quadratic growth	Stephen Silver	[255]
The first pattern exhibiting quadratic growth that starts with the thickness of a single cell, using the breeder from Nick Gotts' 26-cell quadratic growth.
=6	5	Pulsar Pixel Display	Mark Walsh	[256]
8	4	Stable HWSS Heisenburp	Sergey Petrov, Richard Schank, Martin Grant	[257]
9	2	77P6H1V1	Josh Ball	[258]
The smallest known spaceship of this speed in terms of its minimum population, found using WinLifeSearch.
10	1	Small moving sawtooth	cloudy197	[259]

2010

Entries • Voting • Results

The following patterns were voted on for the 2010 competition. Users were able to vote for up to three patterns, but not their own patterns; all votes were weighted equally. Adam P. Goucher organized the competition.

Final rank	Votes	Pattern	Author	Link(s)
Description
1	14	Gemini	Andrew J. Wade	[260]
The first oblique spaceship to be constructed, with a speed of (5120,1024)c/33699586.
2	9	Phi calculator	Adam P. Goucher	[261]
A modification of Goucher's similar pi calculator to instead calculate the digits of the golden ratio.
3	6	c/5 diagonal rake	Matthias Merzenich	[262]
=4	5	Pianola breeders	Paul Tooke	[263]
A series of Gemini-inspired patterns with a growth rate in between linear and quadratic growth.
=4	5	Merzenich's p31	Matthias Merzenich	[264]
The first known period 31 oscillator, which also has the ability to reflect gliders 90 degrees.
6	4	Gemini guns	Dave Greene	[265] [266]
=7	2	Sawtooth 260	David Bell	[267]
Formerly the smallest known sawtooth in terms of minimum repeating population.
=7	2	c/5 orthogonal greyships	Hartmut Holzwart	[268]
9	1	Period-45 glider gun	Matthias Merzenich	[269]
The first true-period-45 glider gun to be discovered.
=10	0	MWSS Heisenburp device	Martin Grant	[270]
=10	0	Beluchenko's other p37	Nicolay Beluchenko	[271]
The second known period 37 oscillator, and the first one with the ability to reflect gliders 90 degrees.
=10	0	Flying wing spaceship	Emerson J. Perkins	[272]
A growing spaceship which grows in both dimensions.

Also see

• OCA Discovery of the Year