Less Basic Ant

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WHAT IS IT?

This is an agent-based model of an ant trapped in a dish. An ant moves around the environment, changing direction when it encounters the boundary of the dish.

This is a child model of Basic Ant which has an elaborated model for turning at bariers, as shown in Hunt et al (2014) with a 35/19 preference for turning left.

HOW IT WORKS

I borrowed some code from the Circular Path Example (to draw the patches that represent the dish), adapted it a bit, and wrote a little code of my own.

A function called "setup" clears everything away, creates a ring of patches where the ant can't go, and then creates an ant.

There is just one function called "go". The "step" button calls this function once. The "go" button, calls it forever.

In the function, the turtle moves forward one step, checks to see if it's over a patch it can't go over. If it is, it backs up and turns right 20 degrees.

THINGS TO CONSIDER

How is this model similar or dissimilar to an actual ant? How could you tell?

Can you improve the behavior of the existing model to make it more realistic?

What are some additional behaviors that could be programmed into the model?

Can you extend the model to account for additional behaviors?

LITERATURE CITED

Hunt ER, O'Shea-Wheller T, Albery GF, Bridger TH, Gumn M, Franks NR. Ants show a leftward turning bias when exploring unknown nest sites. Biology Letters [Internet]. 2014 ;102367228182062712322174247965272144312(124421541161115642):20140945 - 20140945. Available from: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/cgi/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2014.0945

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Click to Run Model

globals [radius]

to setup
  clear-all
  set radius max-pxcor - 2
  ;; make a turtle to draw our boundary
  create-turtles 1 [
    ;; move to edge of circle
    fd radius
    ;; turn to face clockwise
    rt 90
    ;; go along the arc and make the patches blue
    repeat 360 [arc-forward-by-angle 1 set pcolor 84]
    die
  ]
  ;; make a turtle to be our ant
  create-turtles 1 [
    set color red
    set size 3
    set shape "bug"
  ]
  reset-ticks
end 

to go
  ask turtles [
    ;; go forward
    fd 1
    ;; check to see if we moved into the barrier
    if pcolor = 84 [
      ;; whoops! backup and turn
      bk 1
      ifelse random 54 > 35 [lt 20] [rt 20]
    ]
  ]
  tick
end 

;; This is the procedure I borrowed.  It moves the turtle to the next point
;; on the circle, the given distance along the curve.

to arc-forward-by-angle [angle]
  ;; turn to face the next point we're going to
  rt angle / 2
  ;; calculate the distance we'll have to move forward
  ;; in order to stay on the circle. Go there.
  fd 2 * radius * sin (angle / 2)
  ;; turn to face tangent to the circle
  rt angle / 2
end

There is only one version of this model, created about 9 years ago by Steven Brewer.

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Parent: Basic Ant

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