Ideas for extending the Case Study
You can start out showing the students how to do a few of these and then leave it up to them to come up with both a new fish classes and a new non-fish class.
- Add HungryFish that eat neighboring fish when hungry. They don't eat when they aren't hungry. They will die if they get too hungry and don't eat. See http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/174. Barb Ericson ericson at cc.gatech.edu
- Add that a male and female fish need to be in close contact (neighbors) before a female fish can have baby fish. Barb Ericson ericson at cc.gatech.edu
- Last year I had a few students modify the case study so that the fish only bred with another compatible fish. Each fish had a genetic code which consisted of two integers. The integers were the product of primes and each prime represented a specific gene. Thus you could use modulus to test for the presence of a particular gene. My students had some traits (color, size) that could be readily seen and some that couldn't. There are a any number of simple variations which can lead to some substantive learning. Greg King mathking at columbus.rr.com
- Add a mine that blows up and destroys nearby fish. Charlotte Fischer cfischer5 at comcast.net
- a fish that dies and reappears after three steps ... Charlotte Fischer cfischer5 at comcast.net
- Creating a BlinkFish which Blinks (or teleports) to random empty squares in the environment (or if the world is an unbounded environment will blink to within a specific range of it's current location) McAnally, Christopher McAnallyC at cfbisd.edu
- Creating a KnightFish which moves like a Knight in chess. McAnally, Christopher McAnallyC at cfbisd.edu
- Creating a MazeSolver fish which can figure out how to navigate a maze with a Stack for backtracking. I use a Plant to mark the end of the maze. McAnally, Christopher McAnallyC at cfbisd.edu
- The Game of Life is a classic MBCS Lab. McAnally, Christopher McAnallyC at cfbisd.edu
- a pirahna fish that turns anything around it to bones, then disinegrates luhiteacher2002 at hotmail.com
- a crazy fish whose movement is unpredictable luhiteacher2002 at hotmail.com
- Dr. Suess fish...it starts out as one fish, then goes to two fish, then to a red fish, then a blue fish luhiteacher2002 at hotmail.com
- sleeping fish luhiteacher2002 at hotmail.com
- an eel that stuns the fish luhiteacher2002 at hotmail.com
- a bomb that destroys a certain area of the environment luhiteacher2002 at hotmail.com
- a hippie fish that turns colors and when it comes into contact with another fish, it makes it a hippie too luhiteacher2002 at hotmail.com
- create a sick fish that gets other fish sick