 |
Marine Biology Simulation
Case Study |
Teaching
Resources
Basic Information
- Downloading the
Marine Biology Simulation case study from the College Board web site
- Downloading the MBS Case Study
Teacher's
Manual (PDF file; teachers must have an APCentral login id and password
to access the Teacher's Manual)
- Object Diagrams (zip
file for downloading the entire set of Object Diagrams)
- smallfish.gif
- Compiling and executing the MBS program
under various IDEs
- altmbsgui.jar: An alternative for
mbsgui.jar that can display objects other than a fish. This could be
useful to put things other than fish into the MBS Simulation, or for writing
other applications that use an
Environment. Note that
to put things other than Fish in the MBS Simulation you will
also need to change the Simulation code, which currently casts
all the Locatable objects to Fish objects before
calling the act method. One possibility is
to create an Active interface (containing only an act method),
modify Fish to implement Active, and create
your boats or islands or whatever and have them implement Active also
(possibly with act methods that do nothing). The
new altmbsgui.jar graphical user interface can handle both display classes
and images for Locatable objects other than Fish (by
extending AbstractLocatableDisplay or using LocatableImageDisplay).
If you add your new classes, such as Boat or Island,
to the array of classes passed to MBSFactory.addEnvObjClassNames in MBSGUI.java,
then you can also add/edit boats and islands in the Create Environment part
of the graphical
user interface. You can find examples of the Active interface, modified
MBSGUI, Fish, and Simulation classes, and new Island, Rock, and RockDisplay classes here.
Teaching Ideas and Related Assignments
- Teaching Fundamental Concepts (Materials you could use before covering
Chapter 1 or between Chapters 1 and 2)
- Aquarium
Lab Series: labs in the series deal with constructing objects,
invoking methods, basic flow control constructs, implementing classes
- Talking Robot
Project: lab
and follow-up
exercise that practice
if statements and using the Random
class
- Histogram Project:
practice loops and using the
Random class, with a follow-up
exercise using an array of integers (this project uses a BoundedEnv
object for plotting the histogram, although students don't have to be
aware of that)
- Grid
Plotter: write methods that navigate a two-dimensional grid data
structure, a
BoundedGrid object (very similar to a BoundedEnv),
plotting pictures by placing colored blocks in the grid; graphics is
all behind
the scenes
- Preparing for Chapter 2
- Before going over Chapter 2, you may wish to do the role
play exercise (Word document) developed by Steven Andrianoff
and David Levine of St. Bonaventure University. Ignore the inheritance
version for now.
- The Minnow Project
introduces students to a simplified version of the MBS
Fish
class. In this project students enhance the way minnows move in
their environment, going from simple forward movement to the random movement
exhibited by fish in the MBS Fish class. It not only
allows students to become familiar with a simplified version of the Fish
class, but also with the getDirection and getLocation
methods in Environment. Students should be familiar
with constructing objects, invoking methods, basic flow control constructs,
implementing classes, and the add, get, remove,
and size methods of the ArrayList class before
attempting this project. You may also want to have them read about
the Environment interface at the beginning of Chapter 2 and
do the first two Exercise Sets in that chapter before completing the Minnow
Project.
- Preparing for Chapter 4
- Before going over Chapter 4, you may wish to do the inheritance role
play exercise developed by Steven Andrianoff and David Levine of St.
Bonaventure University. (Word document)
- Supplements to Chapter 4
- Following up on the MBS Case Study
- Object-Oriented
Design: Students develop object-oriented designs for problem specicifications
that are similar to, but not exactly the same as, the MBS case study.
- More links will appear over time.
Other Contexts for MBS Environments
- A Curriculum
- Histogram Project:
Students practice using loops and the
Random class. A follow-up
exercise introduces an array of integers. This project uses a BoundedEnv
object behind the scenes for plotting the histogram.
- Environment
Plotter: Students write methods for drawing in a two-dimensional
BoundedEnv
data structure by placing colored block objects in the environment.
A row-major traversal method is provided; students implement a column-major
traversal, draw diagonals and a border around the perimeter, and so forth.
The program "automagically" places a button on the graphical
user interface for each method students implement. Students receive visual
feedback about the correctness of their algorithms without having to write
any graphics code.
- Minnow Project:
Students modify a simplified version of the
Fish class until
it behaves like the actual MBS Fish class. Students
become familiar with the getDirection and getLocation
methods in Environment.
- Mouse in
a Maze Project: Students implement a program simulating a mouse looking
through a maze for a piece of cheese. (No actual mice are physically
or psychologically harmed in the programming of this project!) As
written, the assignment has students implement some of the code for the
graphical user interface, which requires knowledge of some basic Swing
classes and constructs. The assignment could be made simpler, however,
by providing the graphical user interface code to students, as is done
in the other projects provided on this page.
- AB Curriculum
- The Iterator
Project: Students implement iterators
for a number of different traversals and partial-traversals of a two-dimensional
BoundedEnv data structure.
- The N Queens Project:
Students implement a solution to the classic N Queens problem, using a
BoundedEnv object as the N x N board.
- Grid Package
- The Grid
Package is a library of simple Java classes for modeling objects
in a two-dimensional grid, and provides a library of other classes
that
make it easy to
create graphical user interfaces to display and interact with such
models. It was inspired by, but is more general than, the MBS
Environment and its associated graphical user interface.
Background Information / Resources for Teacher Workshops
Technical Details
Compiling and Executing
the MBS Program
- The
ExecutionInformation folder in the
standard distribution has information about running the case study with
several versions of CodeWarrior (Macs, PCs, UNIX), from TextPad (PCs), or from the
command line under DOS, Windows, Linux, or UNIX
(including OS X).
- Gary
Litvin and Dave
Wittry have provided information on running the MBS (and other programs)
under JCreator (PCs).
- The BlueJ site has information on running
the MBS under BlueJ. The best thing to do is to download the
specialized
BlueJ_Code folder, which creates separate projects
for the two demos, and the versions with and without breeding and dying.
(You do not need to delete the standard Code folder, just leave
the two of them side-by-side.) If you are using a recent version of
the JDK from Sun, make sure you have BlueJ version 1.3 (still beta as of
late July 2003). BlueJ works under Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and UNIX.
- Cay Horstmann has provided instructions
on running the MBS under Eclipse. Eclipse works under Mac
OS X, Windows, Linux, and UNIX.
- Scot Drysdale has provided a
version of the MBS case study that does not use Swing graphics.
This version can be used under Mac OS 9.
Black Box Source Code
- Source Code for MBS Black Box Classes
(the classes in
mbsbb.jar) (You do not need to have or to
look at the source code for these classes in order to compile or run the
MBS program. The source code is provided here merely for those who
are interested in looking under the covers.)
- Source Code for the MBS Graphical User Interface
(the classes in
mbsgui.jar) (You do not need to have or
to look at the source code for these classes in order to compile or run
the MBS program. The source code is provided here merely for those
who are interested in looking under the covers.)
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Last modified on
3/11/05
by Alyce Brady.
