# Arrays of Objects

**Track:** Objects, Data Structures & Algorithms — Creative Coding — the existing 50
**Framework / surface:** p5.js
**Level:** Intermediate
**Prerequisites:** Objects & Classes, Arrays

**In one line:** Manage many independent entities with one loop.

## Theory, aesthetics & inspiration

Once behavior lives inside an object, an array holds many such objects, and a single loop animates an entire population—each entity tracking its own position, velocity, and history while obeying shared rules. This is the structural basis of the particle system, introduced by William Reeves in 1983 to render fire and explosions as thousands of autonomous primitives, and of Craig Reynolds's Boids, where simple per-agent rules yield flocking. The aesthetic payoff is emergence: complexity that no single object contains arises from their multiplicity. Daniel Shiffman's "The Nature of Code" builds steadily from one mover to a swarm, making the loop the engine of visual life.