Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
This creative project develops an environment in which three species inhabit a shared land and models the movement of the creatures to determine the survival rates over time in specific conditions. The three species modelled include a predator and a prey species with movement capabilities as well as a stagnant fruit species. There are a variety of configurable variables that can be used to modify and control the simulation to observe how the resulting population charts change. The big difference between this project and a normal approach to simulating a predation relationship is that actual creatures themselves are being created and their movement is simulated in this virtual environment which then leads to population counts, rather than integrating differential equations relating the population sizes of both species and purely tracking the populations but not the creatures themselves. Because of this difference, my simulation is not meant to handle all the complexities of life that come in the real-world but instead is intended as a simplified approach to simulating creatures' lives with the purpose of conveying the idea of a real predation relationship. Thus, the main objective of my simulation is to produce data representative of real-world predator-prey relationships, with the overall cyclical pattern that is observed in natural achieved through simulating creature movement and life itself rather than estimating population size change.
Among classes in the Computer Science curriculum at Arizona State University, Automata Theory is widely considered to be one of the most difficult. Many Computer Science concepts have strong visual components that make them easier to understand. Binary trees, Dijkstra's algorithm, pointers, and even more basic concepts such as arrays all have very strong visual components. Not only that, but resources for them are abundantly available online. Automata Theory, on the other hand, is the first Computer Science course students encounter that has a significant focus on deep theory. Many of the concepts can be difficult to visualize, or at least take a lot of effort to do so. Furthermore, visualizers for finite state machines are hard to come by. Because I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Automata Theory and parsers, I wanted to create a program that involved the two. Additionally, I thought creating a program for visualizing automata would help students who struggle with Automata Theory develop a stronger understanding of it.
Among classes in the Computer Science curriculum at Arizona State University, Automata Theory is widely considered to be one of the most difficult. Many Computer Science concepts have strong visual components that make them easier to understand. Binary trees, Dijkstra's algorithm, pointers, and even more basic concepts such as arrays all have very strong visual components. Not only that, but resources for them are abundantly available online. Automata Theory, on the other hand, is the first Computer Science course students encounter that has a significant focus on deep theory. Many
of the concepts can be difficult to visualize, or at least take a lot of effort to do so. Furthermore, visualizers for finite state machines are hard to come by. Because I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Automata Theory and parsers, I wanted to create a program that involved the two. Additionally, I thought creating a program for visualizing automata would help students who struggle with Automata Theory develop a stronger understanding of it.
Among classes in the Computer Science curriculum at Arizona State University, Automata Theory is widely considered to be one of the most difficult. Many Computer Science concepts have strong visual components that make them easier to understand. Binary trees, Dijkstra's algorithm, pointers, and even more basic concepts such as arrays all have very strong visual components. Not only that, but resources for them are abundantly available online. Automata Theory, on the other hand, is the first Computer Science course students encounter that has a significant focus on deep theory. Many
of the concepts can be difficult to visualize, or at least take a lot of effort to do so. Furthermore, visualizers for finite state machines are hard to come by. Because I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Automata Theory and parsers, I wanted to create a program that involved the two. Additionally, I thought creating a program for visualizing automata would help students who struggle with Automata Theory develop a stronger understanding of it.
Among classes in the Computer Science curriculum at Arizona State University, Automata Theory is widely considered to be one of the most difficult. Many Computer Science concepts have strong visual components that make them easier to understand. Binary trees, Dijkstra's algorithm, pointers, and even more basic concepts such as arrays all have very strong visual components. Not only that, but resources for them are abundantly available online. Automata Theory, on the other hand, is the first Computer Science course students encounter that has a significant focus on deep theory. Many
of the concepts can be difficult to visualize, or at least take a lot of effort to do so. Furthermore, visualizers for finite state machines are hard to come by. Because I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Automata Theory and parsers, I wanted to create a program that involved the two. Additionally, I thought creating a program for visualizing automata would help students who struggle with Automata Theory develop a stronger understanding of it.
