4CCSAPPA Programming Practice and Applications

Coursework 3: Predator/Prey Simulation

Your task is to extend a predator/prey simulation. You must use the foxes-and-rabbits project,
provided on KEATS, as the basis for your project. Note that this version of the foxes-and-
rabbits project is slightly different from the version in the textbook, so please use the version from
KEATS, not from the textbook. You must replace the Fox and Rabbit classes with different kinds
of predator and prey to simulate a new food chain.
This project is a pair programming task. You must work in pairs. Information about pair pro-
gramming is provided separately.

1 Pair Programming
The pair programming document on KEATS will provide you the information on the structure of
Assignment 3. Make sure you have read this document before continuing with Assignment 3.

2 Register Your Partner

Once you have found a partner, it is vital that you both officially register your partnership on
KEATS, Assignment 3: Partner Selection.

3 Getting Started
Take a few minutes to study the base code. To run the simulation, right-click on the SimulatorView
class and click ‘Run JavaFX Application’. A new window should appear, similar to Figure 1. Call
void simulate(int numStep), on the SimulatorView object to run the simulation.
You may change any of the classes/methods and add your own classes. However, the project
should remain a JavaFX project and void simulate(int numStep) should allow a user to run
the simulation.
Make sure you understand...
• How simulations are executed. The main simulation loop.
• The animal class structure.

• What occurs on each simulation step?

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 Figure 1: Simulation window for the basic Predator/Prey project.

4 Requirements
4.1 General Requirements (50 points)
1. Your simulation should have at least five different acting animals. At least two of these
should be predators (they eat another species), and at least two of them should be prey
(they eat plants).

2. Simulate plants. At the start of the simulation, plants should appear in any cell that isn’t
occupied by a predator or prey. Plant cells should be green. Plant cells are considered free
cells and can be replaced by newborn predators or prey. Dead animals should be replaced
with plants.
3. Predators should compete for the same food source, i.e., predators eat prey.

4. All prey eat plants and have a food value. For example, currently the food value of the rabbit
is 9 units.
5. Simulate disease. Some animals occasionally become sick. Once sick, the animal should
remain alive for a fixed number of steps (you decide how many time steps). Disease can
spread to other animals of the same species. Implement disease as a boolean variable that
becomes true when the animal is sick.

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4.2 Natural Selection (30 points)
Natural selection is the process that causes species to change over time in response to their
environment. You will simulate natural selection in your project using elements of evolutionary
algorithms. More specifically, you will add a genetic component to the project and implement a
mating operation (with mutations).
Currently, an animal’s life cycle, such as breeding age & life span, are controlled by constants.
Modify your code so that all animals have a gene that controls their life cycle. The gene will
determine the following variables:

• breeding age —the age the animal can begin mating. It must be a value between 12 and 90
(inclusive)
• life span —currently set to 120, it must be a value between 10 and 120 (inclusive). It’s
possible that some animals will not be able to breed.

• breeding probability —the probability that an encounter with another member of the same
species will result in reproduction; a value between 0 and 0.50
• litter size —a number between 1 and 12 (inclusive); litter size applies to birthing animals
only.
• disease probability —the probability that an animal becomes sick. This is a value between
0 and 0.5
• metabolism —this value is implied in the base code, i.e., one food unit is subtracted from
foodLevel in each step. Metabolism will be a value between 0.25 and 1 (inclusive), simu-
lating animals with a slow metabolism that needs fewer meals. Note, metabolism will be
subtracted from foodLevel instead of a fixed value.

Every animal has a gene. The gene is a string of 14 integers. These integers will determine
the values for the different stages of the animal’s life cycle and metabolism. For example, the gene
15086350812080 should produce the following values:
breeding age 15
life span 86
breeding probability 0.35
litter size 8
disease probability 0.12
metabolism 0.8
Only the very first population should have randomly assigned genes. Also, you must make
sure that the gene produces values that are within the limits set in this task sheet.
All future animals will be produced through mating, specifically, using a crossover operation.
All animals should be designated as male or female (assume there’s a 50% chance of being male
or female for all animals). Animals can only mate when a male and female meet (meet means
they are in neighbouring cells). Offspring will have half of their genetic material come from the
female parent and the other half from the male parent. For example, if parent one’s gene is
15086350812080 and parent two’s gene is 13043500323040, then all the children in the litter will
have a variant of the gene 15086350323040 —the first seven integers are from parent one and the
last seven are from parent two. Finally, you’ll use a mutation operation to make unique genes for
each offspring: you’ll decide to mutate an integer in the gene with probability 20%. If the integer
is chosen for mutation, 50% of the time you will add one and 50% of the time subtract one.

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4.3 Report (10 points)
Write a short report (no more than four pages long with title page), containing the following:

• The names and student numbers of all students who worked on the submission.
• A description of your simulation, including the types of species that you are simulating, their
behaviour and interactions.
• A list and description of all extension tasks you have implemented.

5 Submission (10 points)

• You’ll submit a zip file containing the following

1. A Jar file of your BlueJ project. —You can create a Jar from within BlueJ by going to
Project, and then “Create Jar File...”. You do not need to change any of the default
options, and so you should just click the “Continue” button. The Jar file must
contain your source code, i.e., the *.java files, and it must run on BlueJ.
2. All of your Java files (*.java)
3. Report (as a PDF)

• Your assignment will be penalised if you are missing any files or included files
that were not asked for in the task sheet.
• Click the submission link to submit your work. Follow all instructions in the ‘Student
Submission Guide’. If you have any trouble submitting your work, email Jeffery Raphael as
soon as possible. Do not wait until the last hour to attempt your first submission.

6 Deadline & Late Submissions

You must submit your assignment on Gradescope via KEATS by Fri., Mar. 7th 16:00 (4pm).

All coursework must be submitted on time. If you submit coursework late and have not
applied for an extension or have not had a mitigating circumstances claim upheld, you will have
an automatic penalty applied. If you submit late, but within 24 hours of the stated deadline, the
work will be marked, and 10 raw marks will be deducted. If this deduction brings your mark
below the pass mark (40%), your mark will be capped at the pass mark. All work submitted
more than 24 hours late will receive a zero.

7 Mark & Feedback

Grades and feedback will be posted on Gradescope by midnight on Fri., Apr. 4th . After marks
have been released, please check that your submission has been graded & you’ve been given credit
for all completed tasks. Make sure to read the marking rubric to understand how assignments are
marked. If you have any questions about your mark or feedback, speak to your TA.