Today, the students worked diligently on the projects they began yesterday. Although students worked on projects separately, the projects turned out very similarly. Both projects used AgentSheets. Both featured animal/insect study through computational science, though differences were present. The projects both involved very intricately designed settings and agents.
The first group designed a model where animals would escape from the zoo. In the model, the monkeys could let the other animals in the zoo out of their cages. The humans in the model would be killed if they came into contact with an animal. If two humans came into contact, they would reproduce. These complex behaviors led to very simple observations on the part of the group. If the humans were able to mass reproduce before the monkeys could free the animals, then the ration of humans to animals would stay relatively constant. If the monkeys freed the other animals before the humans could reproduce, the human population would die very quickly. This model was very usable because of the intricate settings and numerous agents.
The second group created a model of a habitat in which chipmunks and squirrels compete for similar food sources. In the model, the squirrels and chipmunks both could feed on nuts from trees, but only the chipmunks could feed on grass. These relatively simple behaviors of the agents resulted in complex observations that seemed to apply perfectly to this type of habitat in the real world. For example, the chipmunks, which were able to eat a greater variety of food were obviously better able to support themselves. The squirrels often died off because there was too much competition with the other populations.