Belated Pattern of the Year 2014 competition: Voting

[77topaz]

Here is the list of entries for the competition:

• #01 Centipede (by Chris Cain): a large, engineered spaceship which moves at 31c/240 using a unique reaction.
• #02 Dart and crab syntheses (by Martin Grant, Mark Niemiec, Michael Simkin, Ivan Fomichev, Tanner Jacobi, and Brett Berger): glider syntheses for small spaceships that previously did not have them.
• #03 Half-baked knightships (by Adam P. Goucher, Chris Cain, Dave Greene, and Ivan Fomichev): large, engineered spaceships that move obliquely with displacement (6,3) and various periods using the half-bakery reaction.
• #04 Pufferfish (by Richard Schank): a p12 c/2 puffer that was used to make the first wholly high-period c/2 spaceship.
• #05 Spiral growth (by Dave Greene): a self-constructing pattern that grows in an outward spiral.
• #06 Switch engine ping-pong (by Michael Simkin): a 23-cell quadratic growth pattern, which as of February 2018 remains the smallest known.
• #07 Syntheses for all 17- and 18-bit still lifes (by Martin Grant, Mark Niemiec, and Matthias Merzenich): self-explanatory.
• #08 Waterbear (by Brett Berger and Ivan Fomichev): a large, engineered spaceship, which moves at (23,5)c/79 and is thereby the first (and, as of February 2018, the only) fast oblique spaceship.
• #09 Weekender distaff (by Ivan Fomichev): the first 2c/7 orthogonal rake, consisting of a long chain of weekenders perturbing debris.
• #10 Honey thieves (by Matthias Merzenich): the smallest known p17 oscillator, and the first one with a known glider synthesis.
• #11 p27 billiard table oscillator (by Matthias Merzenich): an oscillator in which p5, p8 and p3 rotors phase shift each other.
• #12 LCM oscillators (by Noam Elkies): oscillators featuring multiple rotors that interact in complicated ways.

We will use the same voting system as the 2016 and 2017 competitions:

Vote only for the patterns you like, and give each of them 1, 2, or 3 stars depending on how much you like them. You can vote for your own patterns if you want. Here is an example vote:

#01 *
#02 **
#04 ***
#08 *

The voting will close two weeks after the creation of this post.

EDIT: Voting is now closed!

[77topaz]

For the sake of transparency, I will cast my own vote first:

#01 **
#03 **
#04 *
#06 *
#08 ***
#09 **
#10 *

[Rhombic]

#01 ***
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[dani]

#11 ***

I do not remember much from that year so I will give what seems like a pretty underrated choice the only vote.

[googleplex]

01 **
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08 ***
09 **

[Sokwe]

#01 **
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My votes attempt to simulate how I would have voted if the competition had been held in 2014.

[Extrementhusiast]

#02 **
#07 ***

Strategically voting for my own patterns this time. (This ain't 2013's competition!)

[skomick]

#01 ***
#02 *
#03 ***
#04 **
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#06 **
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#10 *
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[dvgrn]

#01 *
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[Gamedziner]

#08 ***

[Naszvadi]

#01 ***
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#09 *
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[wpolly]

#01 ***
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[Macbi]

#01 *
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[Apple Bottom]

#01 ***
#02 *
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[77topaz]

A reminder: there is now one week left to vote in this competition!

[77topaz]

Voting is now closed. I'll announce the results soon!

[77topaz]

Here are the results of the belated Pattern of the Year 2014 competition! We have three ties.

1. Waterbear (#08) (30 stars)
2. Centipede (#01) (23 stars)
3. Half-baked knightships (#03) (21 stars)
4=. Switch engine ping-pong (#06) (17 stars)
4=. Syntheses for all 17- and 18-bit still lifes (#07) (17 stars)
6=. Pufferfish (#04) (13 stars)
6=. Spiral growth (#05) (13 stars)
8=. Dart and crab syntheses (#02) (12 stars)
8=. Weekender distaff (#09) (12 stars)
10. Honey thieves (#10) (8 stars)
11. p27 billiard table oscillator (#11) (7 stars)
12. LCM oscillators (#12) (6 stars)

[Sokwe]

I'm surprised that the Dart and Crab syntheses ended up so low. They seemed like such a big deal at the time. The construction of small spaceships has always been one of the most sought after results in glider synthesis research, and these patterns represented a significant advance in that technology. By comparison, the synthesis of 25P3H1V0.2 seemed to do better in 2017. I wonder if they would have done better had the competition been held back in 2015.

[codeholic]

I agree. Also the pufferfish may seem like something self-evident in 2018, but in 2014 it was a really huge excitement. It would be definitely higher in my leaderboard.