Below is a working outline (or overview) of the subjects for the semester, week-by-week, subject to some change. See the posts to the Blogs and Announcements Page for details on each week’s topics and readings.
Part I: Introduction to Life (Conway’s as well as the biological kind), some Models in NetLogo, and a few basic NetLogo Programming Commands and Concepts
Week 1: Introduction: Multi-Agent Simulation from Cellular Automata and Conway’s “Game” of Life to IBMs (Individual Based Models), and an Introduction to NetLogo
Read: Start reading the NetLogo 3.1.2 Users Manual. Work through the first two tutorials this week. Also Read: More about John Conway’s Game of Life at the following websites: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life, www.radicaleye.com/lifepage, www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html. Experiment with various implementations. Try the following, and be sure to look at different initial patterns as well as different rules. www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/, and www.ibiblio.org/lifepatterns/. Try to create your own patterns.
Week 2 Basic Programming Concepts–Introduction to NetLogo
Read and Study The NetLogo code (model) for the implementation of Conway’s Life, and also the Ants model. (note: Life can be found in the computer science section, and Ants in the biology section.)
Important note: Although there are a few NetLogo commands that are complex, or subtle, or otherwise difficult to understand, most of them are fairly simple and straightforward. But there are quite a few of them! It is important to begin learning a few each day, and trying them out, to build up a vocabulary for the language. This will make your job much easier later on.
Part II: Delving Headlong into NetLogo
Week 3: Boolean data, local variables, and an introduction to agent sets.
Week 4-5: Reporters, Button and Sliders, and Iteration, plus an introduction to Algorithm Efficiency
PART III: More Advanced Multi-Agent Simulation and NetLogo
Week 6: Computer Hardware plus an Introduction to Plotting
Week 7: Parameters and Reporters: Passing information to and from a Procedure
Spring Recess: March 26 – April 3.
Week 8: Graphics and Sound: using an image to initialize patches
Mid-Term Exam: TBA
Week 9: The Goals of Computer Simulation
Simulation Reading (second half of week): Before class on Friday, read Chapter 1 of Individual-based Modeling and Ecology by Volker Grimm and Steven F. Railsback. Downloadable in PDF format at:
- http://www.humboldt.edu/~ecomodel/book.htm
Or readable on-line at:
- http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/s8108.html
Simulation Reading: Before class on Friday, read the article “Less is More: Agent-Based Simulation as a Powerful Learning Tool in Materials Science” by Blikstein and Wilensky. Downloadable in PDF format at:
- www.blikstein.com/paulo/documents/papers/BliksteinWilensky-LessIsMore-AAMAS2005.pdf
Week 10: More Tools for Experiments — Making use of the Behavior Space. Plus Lists and Strings
SPRING SYMPOSIUM on FRIDAY, APRIL 15: NO CLASS
PART III: NetLogo Wrap-Up and Survey of some Important Concepts in Computer Science
Week 11: Recursion
Work harder on term project
Week 12 : Wrap-Up