Infection
Posted: Sep 29th, '15, 09:41
Joan Güell, a coworker of mine here at the Citilab -who is a biologist-, has built a simple bacterial infection simulation in GP.
It's an example I love, we used to teach it in Scratch all the time because it can be improved a lot, and kids love adding features and "genetically modifying" bacteria!
* You can easily add resistance to bacteria by just counting how many times a particular bacteria has been infected and using that when deciding whether it should get infected upon contact with other infected bacteria.
* You can make bacteria breed on contact. If you've done the previous, it's fun to try different possible outcomes for offspring.
* You can graph the amount of ill/healthy/dead bacteria and see how initial conditions affect the population.
It's an example I love, we used to teach it in Scratch all the time because it can be improved a lot, and kids love adding features and "genetically modifying" bacteria!
* You can easily add resistance to bacteria by just counting how many times a particular bacteria has been infected and using that when deciding whether it should get infected upon contact with other infected bacteria.
* You can make bacteria breed on contact. If you've done the previous, it's fun to try different possible outcomes for offspring.
* You can graph the amount of ill/healthy/dead bacteria and see how initial conditions affect the population.