Vensim Assignment One - CS 1025 Spring 2014
System Dynamics Modeling

Assigned on Tuesday, April 8th, 2014
Due on Tuesday, April 15th, 2014

1. Graphs and Tables in Vensim: VensimGraphsTables.pdf for screen snapshots of one way and a new way of HOW to do the GRAPH and the TABLE.

       Make sure the TABLE is RUNNING DOWN instead of across the page
   
       New option of showing the line widths at different thickness to make
           it easier to see which line is for which graph:
   
                 Births - lineW 3   Deaths - lineW 1  Population - lineW 6
   
       Customizing the Y-axis Minimum and Maximum for the POPULATION
   
       How to have Births and Deaths share the same SCALE on the Y-axis.
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2. Carefully read pages 1 through 6 of chapter two. September10thBirthsDeathsVensim.pdf does not include SOME of the highlights from Chapter 02 of the 2nd edition of Andrew Ford's Modeling the Environment textbook.
3. This assignment assumes that you have read Chapter 02: Software (preview draft) Getting Started with Stella and Vensim, which is from the 2nd edition of Andrew Ford book.
4. What to turn in for the assignment: Submit by attachment .mdl file and file with Table and Graph output...
5. If you are having trouble, here is the very same online Vensim modeling tutorial that we went through during the hands-on classes. The tutorial teaches you how do everything I have shown you how to do in Vensim. System Dynamics Tool - Vensim PLE Tutorial 1.
6. SHODOR tutorials on Ventana VENSIM, the system dynamics modeling toolset. The Vensim PLE Online Tutorial would be especially useful practice and background if you missed class or classes on VENSIM.

7. VENSIM Software : Download the Ventana Vensim PLE (Personal Learning Edition) software - which is free if used for educational purposes.
8. See the Vensim Control Panel, the Sketch pad diagram structure of a Vensim model from the tutorial, and a Vensim Table all in one screen snapshot. Unconstrained Growth example from class and directly from the online tutorial.
9. Send me your mdl (the .mdl extension is the suffix that Ventana Vensim places on Vensim file. The .mdl suffix/extension is probably taken from the word MoDeL when you remove the vowels. Send it (your .mdl Ventana model file) as an attachment in an email to jacobson@cs.uni.edu to submit your assignment.

   You can also send an attachment of the GRAPH and of the TABLE, that you have inserted (Copied and Pasted as shown in class) into a Microsoft Word document. If you have trouble with that, just print out the TABLE and the GRAPH or see me before or after class for help on that part.

   Your graph and table will be of the births, deaths, and population. The TABLE does not have to include ALL of the rows. Just the first 5 or 10 rows and the last 5 or 10 rows would be enough. It should be clear from the assignment handout, which shows what my graph and my table looked like.