Rob's p16/Snippet

Rob's p16 is a period-16 oscillator that was found by Rob Liston on February 9, 2020 with apgsearch. Being an asymmetric, natural, strictly volatile, very small but totally novel oscillator, it became a significant record-breaker. It gives off some weak sparks, which can be used in a least-common-multiple period oscillator, a p24 LWSS stream filter or a bumper.

Soon after the discovery, Tanner Jacobi found a 17-glider synthesis for the oscillator. Subsequent soup search results have gradually reduced the cost down to 10 gliders; this is incidentally based on a soup not found by Liston, which also results in an 8-object one-glider p2 slow salvo seed.

Rob's p16 ranked fourth place in the Pattern of the Year 2020 competition on ConwayLife.com forums along with smaller elementary 3c/7 spaceships.