Lesson 4 Activity 2 - Create your own ecosystem model

In this lesson students will create the model from their original design. There is a wide range of projects students could propose - varying from simple to very difficult. Part of the task will be choosing a project that can be completed within the given time frame.
  • Using your original design for a computational science project, complete your project design form
  • Select an option or come up with one of your own
  • Try to implement your project design.
  • Learn about how to add features needed for the project alternatives
    • create a species at an intermediate trophic level or as a competitor on an existing trophic level
    • change the behavior of the agents (ex. chase and runaway)
  • Select an option or come up with one of your own and implement it.

Your challenge:
It is important to explore and become accustomed to programming without explicit instructions. So try out the challenges listed above or try to implement your own design and see how far you can get.  Here are some suggestions to get started.

Agents and environment
  • The students should first create code that adds in their agents and any modifications to the environment they want. This will usually include adding new breeds, and creating agents (see cookbook page). New breed specific variables can be created in the edit Breeds panel.
  • Once agents are created, they will need to have their variables initialized. Agents have different shapes, colors, and sizes.
  • Next, if changes to the environment are needed, agents can be created and used to edit the terrain during the start up phase.
  • Agent behaviors can be implemented as procedures on the breed page corresponding to the agent.
 Interactions
  • The students should then create code that gives their chosen agents behaviors and interactions with other agents and the environment.
  • See the cookbook pages for descriptions of different interactions that can be implemented.
If you get stuck -- or, after you've finished, to compare your solutions to ours -- check out the videos below that demonstrate how to make the changes.


Solutions:
If you get stuck or finish your project and would like to see how we made additions to the model, you can view these videos.  BUT PLEASE, try to build your design first.

Create a new species at an intermediate trophic level or as a competitor on an existing trophic level



Change the behavior of the agents (ex. chase and runaway)