Prof. Jon Pearce, San Jose State University, California.

Web page of this course

The NetLogo language is based on an intriguing eco-oriented paradigm: virtual turtles swimming around in a virtual pond. Turtles are provincial. They know nothing of the pond beyond their limited field of vision. A turtle's behavior is determined by a list of simple procedures that it perpetually executes. Turtles eat, mate, age, and die. They cheat and cooperate. They buy and sell. They hunt and flee. They spread rumors and diseases. They imitate their neighbors. Oh, I almost forgot, they can also draw.

Although turtles are provincial and their behavior simple, the behavior of the ecosystem as a whole (pond + turtles) can be surprisingly complex. Patterns emerge: self regulatuion, self organization, boom and bust cycles, synchronicity, flocking, rebelling, tipping points, evolution, even standards of morality.

NetLogo can be viewed as a laboratory for studying the emegent behavior of agent-based systems. Its ease of use (NetLogo is based on Logo, which was designed for children) makes it popular among biologists, economists, sociologists, chemists, physicists, and artists. Agent-based architectures are also interesting to computer scientists attempting to leverage massively parallel systems while avoiding the complexity of centralized control.

In this course we will use NetLogo to model complex systems. We will also explore the eco-oriented paradigm as an approach to games, ambient computing, and grid computing.

Students

Tiffany Silva
Sagar T.U.
Sakshi Bhatnagar
Mitchel Vlentina Dsouza
Manoj Hosabettu Rao
Praveen Jain
Ankit Pandey 
Punravee Cherngchaosil
Babak Goshtasbi
Joshua Liong
Matt Sguerri
Elyse Van Zant
Richard Wang
Yulia Newton
Michael Haney
Andrew McCandless
Brandon Bass
Valentin Delaye
Alexandre Kovar
Marc Sommer
Christian Masson
Mohamed Regaya
Romain Cornaz
Lionel Gaillard
Yvan Da Silva
Mathias Blanc