CSC 107 - Term Project

Assigned March 19th

Overview

The purpose of this project, worth 20% of your final grade, is to improve your research, writing and communication skills as well as give you an opportunity to explore in-depth a particular area of agent-based modeling.

Topic Selection

This project is a group project. You must select a partner for this project and your topic for you presentation by Thursday, March 22th.

Your project will be to design and investigate an agent-based simulation in StarLogo.

Some suggestions for topics include

Consequences of overfishing
Climate change
Standing ovations
The wave at sporting events
Slime mold
Flocking behavior
Complex ecology studies
Sugarscape
Immune sytems
Rumor propogation

Remember, think small and simple, you want to model one piece of the situation, not every little detail. Think about what might matter and what you can ignore.

Background Overview

On Wednesday, March 28th, I will need a one-page overview of your project task.

Topic Background
- What are you investigating and why is it interesting?
Motivating Question
- What questions are you trying to answer with this modeling project?
Important Parameters
- What are the inputs I will need to investigate this question?
Hypotheses for the Conclusions.
- What do I expect to see as the output of the model?

Model Descriptions

On Wednesday, April 11th, I will need a one-page description of your agents and environment in your model. Be sure to specify what situations your agents might encounter and what their actions will be in these situations. Also include a diagram of the state transitions for the behvaior of your agents.

Rough Draft

On Friday, April 20th, I will need a rough-draft of your project paper. It should follow the guidelines below

Project Organization

Your paper must be at least 6 pages. You should include the following sections

Introduction
Background
Model Description
Variants Explored
Evaluation
Conclusion
References

Your paper must reference at least one mathematical formulation present in your model. You should include a diagram describing the agent behavior and the patches behavior, and make good use of graphs to demonstrate your results.

Presentation

Finally, on Monday April 30, 12:00-3:00pm, a 10 minute in-class presentation will be required. Time and material should be split evenly between all project partners. Your objective in the presentation is to fill us in on the main ideas of how you modeled your topic. Leave at least one (1) minute for questions at the end of your presentation.

Practice is strongly encouraged prior to your actual presentation. The best way to be comfortable with presenting in front of an audience is to practice. You will be graded on both the organization and the presentation of your talk. The 10 minute time-limit will be strictly enforced to ensure equal time for all presentations.