Jan. 21st, 2017

Ameya, Caroline, and I presented our group project today. We wrote out a script throughout the project and we read from that script while presenting. After introducing ourselves, Caroline and Ameya talked about the Vensim model while I was on the computer going through it. After we finished with Vensim, Caroline controlled the computer while Ameya and I talked about the model in AgentCubes. We all had a lot of fun working on this project. If we did it again, I think we could have added a couple of additions or different aspects to the project that would've made it even better. One of our ideas was to put a "scent" by using hillclimb from our young fish to the deep water, and another one that would guide our adult fish back to the shallow water to lay eggs. Since the random aspect of the movement of the fish would decrease, the population of the fish overall would increase. To keep that in control, we would also add a scent from the predators to each of their prey, so that not only are the fish moving more efficiently, but the predators are catching the fish faster. It would also be interesting to experiment with other factors that could affect the fish. Another idea that we had brainstormed originally as an addition was that we could add an "oil spill" to the agent model, which would slowly affect and kill off the fish and predators in a certain area. In our Vensim model, it would have also been interesting to add predators to the relationship, so it would be more realistic, and the prey wouldn't just be dying of natural causes. We also learned a lot about presentations and ways to present properly and effectively.

Dec. 17th, 2016

Today, I wasn't in class. I was in India visiting family and sightseeing. Caroline and Ameya worked on the group project. They added a fish net, creating another "predator" in the model. They also tried to add a hillclimb, where predators sought out prey and prey went towards the deep end and back, depending on the point in the life cycle that they were in. The hillclimb didn't end up working, but the fish net did. I also added the description for the AgentCubes model in markdown language at home and finished up our script. Caroline and Ameya added finishing touches to both models and we were ready to present.

Dec. 10th, 2016

Ameya, Caroline, and I worked a lot on our group project today. We started by catching Ameya up on what she missed and helping her fill in her notebook and explaining our assignment. After that, we started working on our Vensim model, which was almost completed. The Vensim model represented the life cycle of a fish in a more mathematical way. The fish transitioned from an egg to a baby fish to a young fish to an adult fish and eventually died. While Caroline and Ameya were working on the Vensim model, I started writing the simple code for the website and Caroline and I switched around and added to it as we went on. After we finished up the Vensim model, we started working on our model in AgentCubes. In our AgentCubes model, we started with eggs hatching in the shallow part of the ocean. Eventually, the eggs would either turn into baby fish or "erase" themselves and essentially die. In the case that they turn into baby fish, they kept swimming in the shallow water and regular ocean until they turned into young fish. If the baby fish went into the deep ocean, they died. Once the baby fish turned into young fish, they would eventually make their way to the deep ocean, where they would turn into adult fish. The adult fish would eventually make their way back to the shore and lay eggs and the cycle would continue. After creating the graph in AgentCubes, we added fisherman and people who hunted the fish eggs to make it more realistic. We also started working on our script and are almost done with that and our websites.

Dec. 3rd, 2016

Today we started off by learning about using diffusion in AgentCubes. We had already done a diffusion example in Excel, where we averaged the values of the cells around each cell to find its value. In AgentCubes, we used diffusion as a kind of "scent" to draw people towards or away from something. We started off by using it in the example of drawing sick people to a hospital for them to get better. Dr. Panoff showed us how we could also use it in a model which represented bees being drawn to flowers and talked about how we could use it to draw a predator to the prey or the prey away from the predator. Afterwards, we divided up into groups and started brainstorming. Ameya wasn't here today, but Caroline and I brainstormed a lot of ideas before finally deciding on representing the life cycle of a fish with AgentCubes and Vensim. We wrote out our story for AgentCubes and drew our model for Vensim in our notebooks. After getting it approved, we started working on our model in Vensim and we're almost done with it. We also started making the agents and shapes for our AgentCubes and will keep working on it next week.

Nov. 19th, 2016

Today we learned about how agent models and system models compare. We also learned about global and local variables, aggregates, and individuals and how they all relate to modeling. We started off by learning about the basic types and Vensim models and how they can apply to many different things. Then, we started working in AgentCubes. We learned the basics and then made a simple model with "things" moving around on a world. Then, we expanded that to flies bouncing around a room and erasing themselves once they get to a window. After we made those, we got even more advanced and made an SIR model in AgentCubes, with sick people infecting the healthy, and the infected changing back into healthy after a certain amount of time. We also were slightly introduced to diffusion in AgentCubes.

Nov. 12th, 2016

Today, we started off by learning about the equation Have = Had + Change, and how we can apply it in the real world and how we use it in a lot of our classes without even realizing it. We then used Excel to model the population of rabbits and different factors that can affect the population. After we worked in Excel for a while, we moved on to Vensim and modeled rabbit populations with simple life and death factors and then SIR (Susceptible Infected Recovered) populations in Vensim. I also made extensions to the Vensim model, adding in a Recovered population that wasn't there before. It was really fun and really interesting to learn more about modeling and using and applying a system model.

Nov. 5th, 2016

Today, we continued to learn about programming in Excel. We started off with a simple program where we added the cells that stored the value of the number of cats and the cells that stored the value of the number of dogs and stored it in a cell that represented the number of pets. After that, we worked on figuring out how the syntax of Excel works. We also used iterations and learned about them and how they apply to programming. We also used a model to show how heat diffuses in a room, averaging the cells.

Oct. 22nd, 2016

Today, I wasn't in class, I was in Michigan visiting family. In class, we learned about basic programming concepts and programming in Excel. We created a coin model that had the same chance of flipping to heads as it was to tails. We then learned how to reiterate it to make the model run repeatedly, finding that the more results we ran, the closer the chances got to 50% and 50%. We found out the percentages by giving a value of 1 to heads and a value of 0 to tails.

Oct. 15th, 2016

Today, we learned about professionalism in a place of work and how to interact with our peers and the staff members. We met Dr. Panoff and he taught us about the origin of Shodor and a lot of other things. We all brainstormed different types of models and how we can apply them to real-life situations. We also learned to question everything, even the places where we get our answers from, such as Google.

Oct. 8th, 2016

Today, we introduced ourselves by pairing up and introducing our partner. We also all went through the Code of Conduct together and talked about basic rules and expectations. We learned how to use our Shodor accounts and took a tour of Shodor. It was really exciting and I'm really excited to become an apprentice.

This website was created by Divya Aikat.
Special thanks to the Shodor Staff.