Wiring a sensor to an actuator with a straight or crossed connection produces approach or avoidance behavior

A Braitenberg vehicle is a minimal agent with a sensor (detects something in the environment) directly wired to an actuator (propels it). The wiring geometry alone determines its apparent behavior: a straight-through connection makes the vehicle approach and stop at the stimulus; a crossed connection makes it veer away, because the more-stimulated side speeds up and steers the vehicle off. Whether the connection is excitatory or inhibitory flips approach into avoidance. Nothing in the vehicle ‘decides’ — complex-looking goal-directed behavior (fear, aggression, love) is an emergent read-out of trivial wiring. For creative coders this is the foundational template for autonomous agents: define what each agent senses, what it drives, and the sign/crossing of that link, then let many of them interact. Reas built his Articulate/tissue systems on exactly this sensor-actuator primitive.

Examples

Straight-through, excitatory: vehicle drives toward a light and halts on it. Crossed, excitatory: vehicle swerves away from the light. In a p5.js sketch, one steering agent whose turn rate is proportional to a sensed field reproduces both behaviors by flipping one sign.

Assessment

Wire a single sensor to a single motor two ways (straight vs crossed) in a sketch or on paper. Predict and then verify which produces approach and which produces avoidance, and explain why the crossed wiring veers.