System Dynamics (FreeStyler): Difference between revisions

The educational technology and digital learning wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Line 32: Line 32:
* Mice death by the number of cats
* Mice death by the number of cats


[[image: system-dynamics-cat-simulation-3.png|none|thumb|600px|Large mice population, cats are growing a cyle = 400]]
[[image: system-dynamics-cat-simulation-3.png|none|thumb|800px|Large mice population, cats are growing a cyle = 400]]


[[category:simulation environments]]
[[category:simulation environments]]

Revision as of 14:12, 11 March 2019

Draft

This article shortly documents the system dynamics plugin for the Freestyler software. As of Feb 2019 the program is still working under Windows §10 and Ubuntu 10. However, it requires some extra installation efforts described in the Freestyler article. Also, mouse behavior is fairly erratic which is probably due to the fact that Java programs age very badly, even if adapted for the latest Java Runtime. Anyhow, apart from these shortcomings, the program does its job and in addition runs within an environment that includes other interesting educational applications.

Read also:

The system dynamics palette

System dynamics palette of FreeStyler

Examples

Simulating a single stock growth

The following example (badly) models a system for cat growth, using yearly increase:

  • We start with a population of two cats
  • Birth rate is 2 / year, i.e. on average a couple of cats produces 4 cats / year
  • Death rate is 0.33 / year, i.e. on average one out of three cats dies every year.
System dynamics palette of FreeStyler

After 10 years we got almost 36'000 cats. That is impressive. A real model would include food for cats (e.g. mice) and food for mice (e.g. grass) and interactions between these variables. For example, cats starve without mice, mice would eat all the grass if not eaten by cats and starve too.

Simulating the interaction between two population

The following model taken from a NetLogo library [1] simulates growth of mice and cat populations with so-called Lotka-Volterra equations.

  • Cat birth are influenced by the number of mice
  • Mice death by the number of cats
Large mice population, cats are growing a cyle = 400
  1. Wilensky, U. (2005). NetLogo Wolf Sheep Predation (System Dynamics) model. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/WolfSheepPredation(SystemDynamics). Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.