User-driven software simulates real events

BOULDER – Now even the most technologically challenged can create computer simulations to understand complex events with ease.

A new software program developed by AgentSheets Inc. is making it easy for all professionals, particularly educators, to create simulations of real events. Called AgentSheets with Ristretto, the program is a Macintosh application that develops interactive simulations and design environments through a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.

Geared toward both technical and non-technical users, AgentSheets gives users the power to program interactive simulations and export them to the Web.

Classrooms, businesses and government agencies have used AgentSheets to teach, develop and communicate ideas. While this might sound like cutting-edge technology, Alexander Repenning, founder of the Boulder-based company, views his software as more of a back-to-the-future approach.

“The original idea of the Internet was to interact with others, not just to be an electronic commerce shopping mall,´ said Repenning, who also teaches computer science at CU. “Instead of putting old content into a new media, I’m trying to go back to the idea of putting new content into new media.”

What sets AgentSheets apart from other simulation software is its ability to provide users, even those with no training, will the means to create original simulations by designing the agent’s behavior and setting the conditions they encounter.

When applying agent-based programs, which can take any form the imagination can create, users determine how the program will act and react under various conditions then set the scene and set the agents in motion. The conditions are put in workspaces similar to a spreadsheet that run quickly by an “IF.THEN” formula that can be altered at the user’s will as he or she thinks of new scenarios.

“Processing information is just as, if not more, important than accessing it.” Repenning said. “AgentSheets is like a thought amplifier. You can fully explore an idea through this program and watch the consequences of your thinking.”

Psychiatrists have used AgentSheets to show the effects of drugs such as Prozac on the brain, according to Repenning. NASA employed the software to explore the growth of E. Coli bacteria in microgravity on the Space Shuttle Discovery. In Boulder, city planners used AgentSheets to model complex scenarios using live data of bus route traffic patterns, ridership peaks and pollution levels.

“By changing parameters and characteristics in a Boulder neighborhood, we use AgentSheets as a tool to understand the problems in a neighborhood,´ said Ernesto Arias, CU-Denver professor of city and regional planning. “And we can see the reactions – like an increase in pollution as a result of increased traffic congestion – that will occur before we take the action.”

AgentSheets was founded in 1996 with the help of CU’s Center for Lifelong Learning & Design, which has marketed its software as an invaluable educational tool.

“Once kids get the idea that they can create and understand the dynamics of an event, they learn not just what happened but why it happened,´ said Robert Tinker, president of the Concord Consortium, an educational research non-profit, and a member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology.

At Mesa Elementary School in Boulder, fourth and fifth graders created AgentSheets eco-worlds. After creating animals, the students built them eco-environments to test elements that lead to sustainable ecosystems. Students at Boulder’s New Vista High School created simulations of historic events such as the Montgomery, Ala. bus strikes. These student-built simulations, complete with video and sound, were published on the Internet and subsequently cited in German newspaper articles as inventive uses of new media.

“In order to create the simulations, the students had to have sufficient knowledge of the facts behind the bus strikes,´ said John Zola, a social studies teacher at New Vista High School. “Running the simulations gives them a deeper learning by engaging them and demonstrating their knowledge.”

AgentSheets Inc. is a privately held company that is partially funded by the National Science Foundation. The company has won many industry awards, including the Gold Award presented by the mayor of Paris for the “most creative educational application on the World Wide Web.” A free, self-running demo is available at www.agentsheets.com.

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