Life Science Challenge #2

CS in Science
1

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  1. Which challenge question did you chose, and why?
  2. URL for public link.
  3. What did you struggle with most?
  4. Is there anything else you still need help with?
2
  1. I chose the easy problem because I’m not teaching this subject.
  2. http://www.slnova.org/Pullmann/projects/114737/
  3. I didn’t really struggle with any of it.
  4. No, thank you.
3

I picked the first one, this is not my content so I am not comfortable with it. http://www.slnova.org/Mortensen/projects/117838/ I just need practice.

4

I chose the easy challenge because we are learning basic predator/prey relationships as an extension of animal diversity. This would be a high level project for my kids.

http://www.slnova.org/kimmelce42/projects/122956/

No struggles. Copy, Paste, and changing parameters is easy for me. We might research different breeds of predator prey, and try to model energy levels and reproduction numbers based on research statistics.

5

http://www.slnova.org/dstanton/projects/128539/
I chose this one because it also illustrates the concept of competitor species while focusing on predator prey relationships. I did not struggle with this one but need more practice adding breeds.

6

I chose the medium task for this as well. When developing my new breeds, I added in reproduction rate. They can only reproduce when they reach a certain energy level from feeding on their prey.

http://www.slnova.org/apatti/projects/114524/

I would like to make a suggestion for new physical representations of the breeds. There is a wide variety but there should be more related to ecosystems for this module.

7

I tried to add random energy to the grass. It’s very hard to tell if it worked. Could someone look at it and let me know if you think it’s working?
http://www.slnova.org/edavis77/projects/98930/

8

http://www.slnova.org/wellalan/projects/156407/
I added a new plant that provides more energy to the rabbit.

9

Hi Elizabeth-
I looked at your model and see that the grass is passing along the same amount of energy to any rabbit that eats/collides with it. If you wanted a random amount of energy from the grass, you could change the code in the collision block on the rabbits page. Right now rabbits get exactly 1 rabbit energy from eating a grass. But you could add an equation that would allow a random amount to be transferred. The equation could be something like ‘random 10 divided by 10’ this would allow a random amount between 0 and .9 to be transferred. The collision in the grass tab does not really do anything since the grass energy isn’t really used in any other part of the code. As well, the grass gets deleted according to the rabbit collision block.

Hope that helps but if you have any questions, let me know.
Paige
Project GUTS facilitator

10
  1. I chose the easy challenge because of my lack of familiarity with module 3
  2. http://www.slnova.org/kenneth2.williams/projects/176139/
  3. I struggled with how to create a simulation that will not quickly end, but allow for the agents to grow and interact.
  4. No, I believe it is a matter of more practice.
11

http://www.slnova.org/mann_d/projects/180947/]

I finally switched to the easy one.
i tried the medium one and was working on it for hours, but, even though water came up after set up was pushed, the size continued to be incorrect and the agents would not recognize it.
I stopped working on it because even though I re-coded everything to look like the interactions in the water pump module, it wouldn’t work.
slnova.org website had problems earlier so I’m not sure if it was because of that.
It could have also been flash, but I would think that everything would have a problem working if that was it.

12

http://www.slnova.org/TeacherCervantes/projects/180978/

Again I am not teaching this subject so I chose the easy one and I did not struggle with any of it.

13
  1. I managed to add plants that gave rabbits more energy and it all seemed to be working fine but I think I messed something up when unnecessarily adding a widget so I wound up restarting from my working model, Life Science Challenge #1. I was going to try a harder challenge but got discouraged by my mess-up with this relatively easy one.
  2. http://www.slnova.org/cristine_maisano/projects/181021/
  3. As mentioned above, I struggled with making a change that then threw the whole program out of whack, giving me a message that “Empty socket is 0” and not being able to run anything. I was unable to figure out how to fix the issue and wound up having to recreate my SuperGrass, which ultimately was not a big deal but the frustration of not being able to figure out where I went wrong drove me a little bit crazy.
  4. I guess my question is how do you backtrack in programming? does it sometimes just make more sense to rebuild a working model then trying to fix something that didn’t seem to work?
14

Hi,

I added a super wheat grass to the mix. It made the rabbits go crazy. Rabbits and Grass with Wheat GrassREMIX 2015-12-31 15:16:04.321772

I think the thing that can be difficult is remembering to have procedures specific to the breed.

15

http://www.slnova.org/kndoyle/projects/196631/
I was able to create the carrots and the rabbit population definately increased.

16

Hi,
I selected the easy challenge and attempted to add a new form of vegetation. I was able to modify my previous model to add a new source of food. I was not able to alter the addition of this new source - however after completing the project, I realized that if I include collision commands I will be able to distinguish the food source for the rabbit. I can continue to modify this project to include this added variable.

I http://www.slnova.org/masantana/projects/196773/

17

http://www.slnova.org/hahnhawk89/projects/201058/
I attempted to make grass that gives the rabbits more energy. I think I may have created too many rabbits. I have to review how to add the new data to the graph to reflect the population.

18
  1. Why is my predator oozing white stuff? I wanted to add wheat in a “flower shape”. It was supposed to be black. My predator now has a white “ooze effect”. I don’t understand…

http://www.slnova.org/MrsPiper213/projects/202119/

19
  1. I chose to add ages to my rabbits, bears, and lions. They die when they get too old and reproduce when they are old enough (and have enough energy).
  2. http://www.slnova.org/jljohnson19/projects/202284/
  3. Finding out the ages of death and reproduction for each animal.
  4. Lists in SLNova.
20

http://www.slnova.org/cdhoff/projects/202401/

Modification of zombies in an ecosystem trying to work with energy needed to kill something