Re: follow-up on mosquito project

["Gary McCallister" <mccallis@xxxx>]

>>> WendyPetti@xxxx 08/30/01 10:46PM >>>

1) I notice that the introduction says to click the setup button twice. =20
That is an error. I am not sure why I said to click twice.
2) Is there a reason for including a separate "setup" button, or could the=20
setup procedure be included as a command within the "find" procedure?
There is no reason that this could not be included in the main program. I 
think it was originally set up as an aid to figuring out what I was doing. 
Then over time it just became the assumed mode in my mind. This would be a 
good improvement.
3) Is there a particular reason for having the "moves" slider record=20
alternate moves of the mosquito rather than every move?
That is a bug. I have not been able to figure out why it does that. Can you 
explain what is happening? It was intended to count each move. What did I do 
wrong?

4) I am curious as to why the mosquito stops when it reaches a distance of 10 
pixels from its target.=20=20
I chose that for a couple of reasons. One is that I probably didn't know 
"touching" when I started the project. :-) But I have left it this way to 
shorten the time it takes to actually stop the program (it got real tedious 
waiting for those last several moves) but more importantly, mosquitoes don't 
have to hit you dead center, they only have to find an exposed regionwithon a 
parameter of the center. This seemed more biologically accurate.Certainly 
doesn't matter much in either case.

5) Okay, one last question! I was curious as to why you are using a black=20
square and a red square in your simulation instead of semi-realistic shapes.
This is one choice I made carefully instead of by default. In fact the first 
versions had a hand drawn mosquito instead of a square. There are several 
reasons.=20=20
One: I work with adults and college age kids and the turtle is sometimes a distracting symbol. I thought the squares made it more acceptable.=20=20
Two: Pictures of flying mosquitoes are hard to come by. Dead ones do not look as if they are flying, they look dead. If I paste a dead mosquito ontothe turtle, you don't get a real looking flying insect.
Three: I am trying to generalize biological principles. While this project was written to learn Logo, I am trying to also study biology. It occuredto me that the principles and assumptions I used to guide my "mosquito" may well apply to other animals of small brain looking for a meal. A square makes it more acceptable as a generalized "critter". I have actually presented this model at a mosquito meeting AND a meeting of parasitologists who study worms.




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