Introduction to Natural Computation

Continuous Assessment, 14 October 2009.

This assessment is worth 15% of your overall mark for this module.

The work is due in on: Friday 6 November 2009, 12 noon. The work must be handed in to the School Office. Work handed in after this deadline will receive ZERO marks.

Your work should be labelled with your STUDENT ID ONLY. Do NOT include your name anywhere on the work. You will be able to collect your work back, once it has been marked, from the School Office or in the lectures. Marked work, with feedback, will be returned by 25th November.

Instructions

Implement a cellular automata simulation of the firefly flashing phenomenon, as discussed in the lecture. The aim is to discover under what conditions (i.e. for what parameter values) synchronisation occurs. You may use any programming language you like. You should hand in a short report (around 6-8 pages) including the following:

1. Brief description of how you implemented the simulation (5 marks).
2. Description of the experiments you performed. (3 marks)
3. The results obtained in your experiments. (5 marks)
4. A summary of your findings. (2 marks).