Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:05:40 -0600 (CST) From: Mark Jacobson To: 810-025-01-fall@uni.edu Subject: Final Project - two specific ideas... Hi 025 students, I spent quite a bit of time on an email note and then the email package did a "core" dump and I lost all of that work. :-( Here goes again: http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/025/ Choice #1. Modeling a Flock of Geese - Flocking Behavior and birds (or schools of fish, or herds of migrating wildebeest). Choice #2. Predator and Prey: Lynx versus Hare NetLogo tutorial. Your own project idea is still okay too. I can add some more questions and specifications to the FLOCKING choice above here, but will wait to hear if anyone wants to pursue that or not. One student after class said during class that he had an idea for his own project, based on my showing how you can play with any of the NetLogo models. That certainly is okay and that makes 3 students I know of that are doing a project that they have decided on. See the Information tab for the Flocking model or any of the models: Interface Information Procedures --------- ----------- ---------- Things to Notice ---------------- After running the model for a while, all of the birds have approximately the same heading. Why? Sometimes a bird breaks away from its flock. How does this happen? You may need to slow down the model or run it step by step in order to observe this phenomenon. Things to Try ------------- Play with the sliders to see if you can get tighter flocks, looser flocks, fewer flocks, more flocks, more or less splitting and joining of flocks, more or less rearranging of birds within flocks, etc. Extending the Model ------------------- Currently the birds can "see" all around them. What happens if birds can only see in front of them? The IN-CONE primitive can be used for this. Is there some way to get V-shaped flocks, like migrating geese? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here is the NetLogo help on the IN-CONE primitive: in-cone reports an agentset that includes only those agents from the original agentset that fall in the cone. (This can include the calling agent itself.) The distance to a patch is measured from the center of the patch. ask turtles [ ask patches in-cone 3 60 [ set pcolor red ] ] ;; each turtle makes a red "splotch" of patches in a 60 degree ;; cone of radius 3 ahead of itself ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Try out this code in NetLogo: ca cro 8 fd 10 ask turtles [ ask patches in-cone 3 60 [ set pcolor red ] ] Then try out this code which uses a 100 degree angle and a radius of 4 instead of a radius of 3. ca cro 8 fd 10 ask turtles [ ask patches in-cone 4 100 [ set pcolor blue ] ] ask turtles [ ask patches in-cone 8 100 [ set pcolor green ] ] ask turtles [ ask patches in-cone 4 80 [ set pcolor white ] ] Let me know if you have questions or need help. http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/025/ See you on Thursday, Mark