Re: talking good

[Ginger Booth]

Kathy,
    Your story is great! The poker chips are exactly what I meant by finding
some way to make a "shared experience." I may use poker chips some
time. :)

Best,
    Ginger

Kathy and Ray La Belle wrote:

> I am afraid I can't help but respond to this one. I am trying to convince my
> management that we need to do complex modeling. I am an engineer. I design
> laundry machines. And believe me they are much more complicated than you would
> think. Ever tried to figure out how and why clothes move? How should they be
> moved to actually clean? We have some methods to do this. We run into
> difficulties in the area of sub-system intergration. It is difficult to feed 
> the
> effects of the structure system into the fluid handling system (as an 
> example).
>
> I keep trying to convince people that the water molecules only know certain
> things. If we model all the entities and all the rules of the groups of 
> entities,
> it may be possible to understand these systems in a deeper way.
>
> I am an electrical engineer. I am working with some chemical and mechanical 
> Phd
> types. I have a hubby (Ray) that just happens to program.  How do I create a
> model? How do I get information from the Phd types that actually means 
> something
> in the programming world? I am trying to create a simple model of diffusion 
> in 2d
> as an exercise.
>
> My first attempt with the Phd types got me equations. I explained these were
> observed effects. This was definately NOT what I needed. And Ray could not use
> this to create a model.
>
> I went out and got some red, blue, and white poker chips and a table cloth 
> with a
> "grid" on it. Of course, the Phd types laughed at me. But after I explained 
> that
> the chips were entities and what did the individual entities know about their
> environment, they decided "hey this is cool". I grouped the blue chips and
> assigned a chip to each of the chemists. One was in the center of the group.
> Another was at the outer edge. I called the game "diffusion" and said the 
> goal of
> the game was to get evenly diffused. And just to make it fun, they get to 
> make up
> their own rules :)
>
> We discussed if how much each molecule would "know, feel, see" about its
> environment. Would they know about every molecule (chip) in existance? Or only
> the ones nearby?
>
>  Initially, I started out with one entitiy type in a "empty space". Then we
> discussed using red chips as the medium and the blue as the ones to disperse.
> After we master "dispersion", we can make the "game" more complicated by
> assigning properties to the different entities such as hyrdophoblic &
> hydrophilic, miscible & immiscible, and even combining into new compounds. The
> point is to learn to think as a particular entity (or swarm) would think. We 
> know
> if we are right if the emerged properties match all those complicated 
> equations
> we use on the macro level.
>
> My counterparts went away and took the chips with them. After a few good
> arguments in their office, they came back with rules I could actually use! The
> main purpose of the exercise was to explain agent based modelling to them. I 
> need
> them to learn to think "as if they were the entity". I may have to get tinker
> toys to show how molecular chains move ....
>
> I decided to tell you about this experience because this "game" could be used 
> for
> all types of people. Alot of people need something visual to understand ideas.
> This concept can be transferred into other fields.
>
>                                                                             
> Kathy
> La Belle
>
> Note: the opinions expressed by me do not represent the company I work for
> (disclaimer)
>
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   Swarm-Modelling is for discussion of Simulation and Modelling techniques
   esp. using Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp. [un]subscribing),
   please send a message to <address@hidden> with "help" in the
   body of the message.
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