Scientific Programming II

ModSim

Greeps Competition

Necessary Software

• Greenfoot 2.4.0 - Windows Installer
• Book Scenarios - Download Here

Background

The Greeps are small, bug-like aliens obsessed with tomatoes. They have come to Earth, the largest source of tomatoes in the galaxy, in order to sate their hunger for tomatoes. You will be in control of 20 Greeps (no more, no less) and are challenged with providing the Greeps with the best algorithm to find as many tomatoes as possible!

It's not as simple as it sounds, however. Greeps have some of the best memories in the galaxy, but can only remember a few things at a time. Also, they are so small that they cannot pick up a tomato to carry themselves. They can, however, load a tomato on the back of another Greep. They also cannot communicate with each other, other than spitting and seeing paint spots.

Competition

The competition will run from 10-31-14 to 11-6-14. Teams may be formed, but no more than two people may work in a team. Teams will need to be submitted by the beginning of the competition.

Rules (page 125)

1. Only change the class Greep. No other classes may be modified or created.

   • I will only be using the Greep.java file provided, so don't try!
   • Inner classes may also NOT be used UNLESS they only define final fields and follow all the same rules.

2. You cannot extend the Greeps' memory. No non-final fields may be added. You are provided with one int and two booleans to use

   • Final fields are constants, like GRAVITY or Integer.MAX_VALUE.
   • I have updated Creature to allow direct access to the integer memory.

   • The boolean flags may be set with this.setFlag(int, boolean)

     • The int is the number of the flag, 1 or 2
     • The boolean is the value to set
   • The flags can be retrieved with this.getFlag(int)
   • Getting a copy of the World in any way is illegal

3. You cannot move more than once per act round

   • move() can only be called once per act()

4. Greeps cannot communicate with each other directly. They cannot call each other's methods or access each other's fields

   • Greep A cannot see the value of Greep B's integer memory
5. No long vision. Greeps cannot see anything beyond what is directly below them.

6. No creation of objects. World.addObject() is not allowed at any time

   • Creating Paint spots ONLY WITH Creature's spit() method IS allowed.

7. No teleporting.

   • Methods like Actor.setLocation() are illegal
   • Actor.move(int) is illegal. Creature.move() is legal.

8. No changing the size of the Greeps

   • The picture may be changed, however, it must be the same dimensions as the original Greeps picture.

Strategies (page 126)

• Look at the Documentation View for Creature (see Greenfoot book). Many essential methods to be used by the Greeps are defined here.
• Work small, save often. It is always better to do very small, incremental changes with constant saving.

• Start here:

  • Turn at water
  • Turn at world edge
  • Wait at tomato pile
  • Try to load tomato on another Greep
  • ???
  • Profit

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