Climate Change Adaptation: Interactive Simulation / Serious Game

 

The aim of this project is to create a publicly available framework, where individuals can contribute modules that deal with various social and climate change phenomena, which, when combined can provide a rich basis for exploration of issues. It is envisaged that eventually, when populated with a sufficient number of models, the toolkit will be used for a variety of purposes, including exploration by policy makers, or use as a "serious game" to raise awareness of issues.

Technical challenges include developing an infrastructure that supports heterogeneous modules, that affect (and are affected by) some shared aspects of the environment. Modules can have varying time granularity as well as varying levels of intelligence. Technical challenges also include combining different agent paradigms spanning small simple agents, complex intelligent BDI (Belief Desire Intention) agents, and agent teams or organisations.

We are working with sociologist colleagues for development of example models.

 

    Student Projects

    We have several student projects available with varying levels of expertise required. If you are interested in completing any of the projects listed below, please contact Lin Padgham (lin.padgham@rmit.edu.au).

    Model Creation

 We require several agent simulation models to be created using ABM software such as REPAST, or a platform which supports the BDI agent paradigm such as JACK or GORITE. This will require students to learn the relevant platform language, and have a good understanding of Java in order to connect the model to our framework. Examples of possible modules to be built:

 

Immigration module

This module will attempt to simulate the movement of populations between cities. This should be based on the conditions of both cities and the ability of citizens to relocate.

Climatic events module

This module should be capable of producing climatic events of varying magnitude, and should be specific to individual cities. This should use some real data and produce events which are realistic given the geographical location of the city and the current CO2 levels present in the atmosphere.

Health module

This module should model some of the health effects within a city. It should take into account some of the health related infrastructure present in the city, and should model some of the health-related recovery from climatic events.

 

    Animation of climatic events

For this project, we require a student with creative design abilities and some experience with modelling and animation. We would like some animations to be created which depict the effects of climatic events on the city to create an engaging and stimulating user interface.

 

    Creation of skins for CCA related units/infrastructure

As we will be adding many new units and buildings to the original game to support a more CCA focused platform, we will require skins to be created for these. We require a student with good design skills and creative talents. Some experience with texturing and 3D modeling is essential (e.g., in Photoshop and 3D Studio Max)".