Welcome to the Creatures Group Page!
What is Creatures?
Brooklyn College's Bridges in Brooklyn 2006 Program was divided into 5 tracks, one of which was Creatures, taught by Professor Parsons. In this program, students learned how to use NetLogo, a program created by Uri Wilensky, that teaches students the basics (and the not-so-basics) of coding. With this program, students created their own universes, making simulations of everything from simple ecosystems with fish, sharks, and plants to complex examples of the spread of Bird Flu from Europe to the United States. With the help of Professor Parsons and Student Ambassador Kervon, our multitude of worlds were thought up, coded, and created in a matter of days.
How Does NetLogo Work?
NetLogo is a program that uses its own code to create virtual demonstrations of what will happen in real life. For example, one Model is called "Flocking" and shows how birds and other animals seem to start from random points, yet eventually come together into groups. By changing the distance the birds can see, you can change the results of the experiment.
To do this, NetLogo uses a list of "primatives," or coding basics, that the program understands. The main primatives used in NetLogo surround the 3 groups of entities that all of NetLogo's worlds are divided into: turtles, patches, and the observer. By commanding these things through programming,virtually any simulations can be made. For example, Turtles control the beings that are technically "alive," such as the fish, sharks, and plants. Patches represent the world that these creatures travel in, while the observer represents you, the person controlling it. By using NetLogo's primatives and your own imagination, one can create a world where rabbits eat planters in a matter of days.
What We Did
The Bridges in Brooklyn Program is a two week long sessions from 9:30am to 3:30pm based in Computer Science. For the first week, each day students would go to two different two-hour sessions, separated by a lunch break. Each of these sessions focused on a different aspect of computer science. These Workshops included E-Biz, which created webpages for business usage; Home-bots, which built, studied, and programmed robots that could be used in everything from rescue missions to the spread of a computer virus; Graphics, which used a program called Alice to create 3-D movies and interactive scenes; Crytography, which studied the encryption (and decryption) of computer codes, including PGP; and Creautres, who used NetLogo to create simulations.
The second week of the Bridges Program involved every student to pick a "track" workshop, which we would follow through for the rest of the week. For the first two days, the Creatures group worked on NetLogo's tutorials, all creating a simple model where the creatures' goals are to reach the top of a hill. For the last three days of the session, the students in Creatures used their imaginations and knowledge of coding to create their own personal simulations.
More information on each of these classes can be found on their respective websites, located at the Bridges Official Website.
A Look at NetLogo Coding
Screenshots of Our Models
For a look at the actual simulation, please click on the pictures below!
Created by Professor Parsons
This simulation shows how the secretion of pheremones allows even the largest groups of ants to follow each other for long distances. The darker the color, the higher the concentration of pheremones.
Created by Christina
This simulation shows a simple ecosystem with plants, rabbits, and planters.
Created by Kervon
This simulation shows the spread of Bird Flu from Europe to the United States through air and water travel by infected people and birds.
Created by Amanda
This simulation shows another simple ecosystem, involving fish, sharks, and plants.
Created by Jean
This simulation shows two kinds of animals: spiders and scorpions. The scorpions hide in a cave, but see what happens when they come out!
Interested in learning NetLogo?
Click here for an example simulation you can make using NetLogo's step-by-step tutorial!
Hope you enjoyed our website!
For more information on Creatures and Bridges in Brooklyn click on our symbol either here or at the top of the screen!
Copyright 2006 Christina Squitieri for Brooklyn College's Bridges in Brooklyn 2006 Program.