Challenge 4

Turning Turtles into Termites

Challenge

There are many types of interactions that can occur between creatures and their environment.  In this Challenge you can choose to model one of two different types of interactions.  You can create a project in which turtles alter their behavior based on environmental characteristics, or you can design and build a project in which turtles change their environment. 

If you choose the first option, then create a project in which the environment influences the turtles in more than one way.  Start by thinking about new ways that the environment can change turtle behavior.  You might build a world of patches that affect the turtles’ position, color, or speed in different ways.  Your project should be more ambitious than the one you completed for Challenge 3.  To see an example of this kind of project, check out (4)Speeding Bumper Turtles.

If you choose the second option, then build a project that asks the turtles to manipulate the patches in their environment.  Perhaps your turtles will “move” objects (represented by patches) as in the (4)Turtledozers or (4)Termites projects.  Alternatively, your turtles could change the patch colors as they walk across the Graphics Canvas.  You can explore how these modifications to the environment change the turtles’ behavior.

Possible Explorations

·        Try programming the turtles to draw paths in colors that also influence their movement.

·        Experiment with combining turtle and patch activity.  Perhaps patches of a certain color influence turtles and turtles change the color of each patch they walk across.

·        What happens in your project if the patches change color randomly?

·        See what happens if turtles multiply when they run into certain patches.  Are the effects of hatch and sprout identical?

·        Explore the results if patches affect absolute headings instead of relative headings.

·        Think about some real-world systems in which living things interact with their environment.  Try to incorporate some of those ideas in your project.

For more information contact Vanessa Colella (vanessa@media.mit.edu) or Eric Klopfer (klopfer@mit.edu).