Interested in the Google Summer of Code

[Edward Cherlin]

2008/3/18 Bobby Powers <bobbypowers at gmail.com>:
> Hi, I'm a master's student at the University of Bergen and I'm interested in
> bringing System Dynamics to the XO.  Before I start, if there is a better
> mailing list for this just let me know (I briefly looked through the other
> ones liked from the Wiki, and this seemed the most appropriate).

Welcome! This is the place.

> System Dynamics (SD) [1][2] aims to help people understand the world by
> explicitly modeling how pieces of it work and then performing experiments in
> these models.  It is used around the world, frequently in majority world
> countries, in development planning [3], for example.  More formally, its a
> methodology for examining and describing the behavior of complex systems
> with an emphasis on the effects that feedback loops and time delays have.
> At a basic level you have to specify the mathematical equations for the
> different parts of your system.   The same problems can be solved by writing
> code in a programming language (I had a course taught in Fortran a year
> ago...), but usually in SD the modeling is done using a visual editor where
> you can show causal relationships, stocks and flows graphically.  I
> personally think the biggest short-fallings of the discipline are the
> barriers to entry: the current software is far from intuitive and all the
> major commercial offerings (there are no FLOSS products) [4][5][6] are very
> expensive (educational licenses alone are frequently > $500 USD).
>
> Will Wright studied SD and used ideas from it when designing SimCity [7].
> So I have several things I would like to work on:  first is a core simulator
> that can transform equations into code (I'm currently working on this for my
> master's thesis, but don't have and funding. eesh): I'm using the JIT
> library from the LLVM project to be able to do this.  Second I want to
> create a Sugar modeling interface that makes it easy and fun to create
> models and explore their results (collaboratively, I hope!), and third I
> want to hook this into Metropolis.  I think it would just be so cool if you
> could click an icon in Metropolis and have the visual model that controls
> the Metropolis world pop up (in the aforementioned editor) and be able not
> only to fiddle with parameters, but change the structure!  If all of this
> goes smoothly and there is more time, I would love to add the ability for
> models to interact with and manipulate geospatial data.
>
> I guess I am looking for people's reaction, is this something people like?

We don't just like it. Some of us are quite excited about it.

We started a discussion not long ago involving.

* Engineers Without Borders
* The Geographic Information Systems community, including
International Symposium on Digital Earth
* Globe.co.uk (weather stations in schools in many countries)
* Timepedia.org (geographic and other free time series data)

about community data gathering of environmental information, feeding
to global mapping, and feeding from there back to communities and out
to NGOs, governments, and international organizations. We are also
discussing collection of health information, and anything else that we
can feed into a computer that bears on the needs of the children and
their communities.

So the prospect of an engine that can start from our data and give us
a peek into various possible futures is a jump up and dance type of
idea.

> I'm certainly willing to adapt myself to the collective needs and I wanted
> to get a discussion started before the application deadline.

Excellent.

> Oh I guess a
> little more background on me:  I attended RPI in NY, USA for 2 years
> studying computer engineering, but transferred because I wanted to do
> something more applied.  I studied environmental studies (at SUNY ESF) for a
> couple years, and got back into coding through classes on ecological
> modeling and GIS.  I've been pretty heavily coding models, algorithms and
> interfaces for the past 2 years, mainly in C#, ObjC and some Fortran, but
> the past 3 months I've been using C++ for 8 hours a day and Python here and
> there.  I've got a Mac with Linux (both FC8 and openSUSE10.3) and Windows,
> and I've just started over the past few weeks to pick up GTK, although I've
> used Cairo in a project for a couple months.  I've only dabbled with the XO,
> but am really looking forward to developing bundles for it.

I am User: Mokurai on the OLPC Wiki, and Founder of Earth Treasury. We
intend to link schools around the world for various educational and
research projects, and to teach the students how to create sustainable
international businesses together.

> I'm eager to hear what you think!
> yours,
> Bobby Powers
>
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics
> [2] http://www.systemdynamics.org/
> [3] http://www.millenniuminstitute.net/
> [4] http://www.vensim.com/
> [5] http://www.powersim.com/
> [6] http://www.iseesystems.com/
> [7] http://www.futuresalon.org/2004/11/will_wright_kic.html
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-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay