Challenge
In the previous Challenges, you altered several turtle properties (e.g., heading, color, etc.). These properties, called turtle variables, allow the turtles to remember information. Turtles can remember additional information about themselves if you add new turtle variables. Each possible value for the new turtle variable is referred to as a “state.”
Can you create a StarLogo project with a turtle “energy” variable? How will your turtles gain and lose energy? How might your turtles behave or look differently as their energy level increases or decreases? How does the turtles’ behavior help you visualize their changing states? What assumptions do you make about a turtle’s state based on its behavior? Are your assumptions accurate?
For hints on getting started, check out the sample projects (5)Energizer Turtles and (5)Rabbits.
Possible Explorations
· Explore different ways that energy can affect the speed and heading of the turtles.
· Try having more than one factor (e.g., colored patches, x-coordinate, who number) influence the turtles’ energy states.
· See what happens if turtles with different energy levels affect the environment in different ways.
· Experiment with turtles hatching other turtles when their energy reaches a threshold level.
· Think about how the turtle behavior that you observe gives you clues about the underlying turtle states. What assumptions do you make about the turtle’s state based on the observed behavior? How might you change your project to make the correlation between underlying state and overt behavior more instructive? For example, turtles with more energy could move faster.
· How can you use states in your model to make individual behaviors seem more life-like?
For more information contact Vanessa Colella (vanessa@media.mit.edu) or Eric Klopfer (klopfer@mit.edu).