FishSimulator

Status: minimally maintained; 2003 (supersedes any conflicting remarks left on this page; see the home page for definitions)

FishSimulator is a Java applet that I wrote in school in 2003.  You can create a lake, put fish in it, and have them swim around.  Fish come in various types, each with their own preferences for different parts of the lake.  You can catch and tag any fish that enter a certain area, then release them and see where they end up.  FishSimulator could be useful for scientific study and is also a fun toy.

When the applet starts, you will be asked to create or load a simulator.  Once you do this, the main screen of the applet will appear.  On the left is a picture of the lake.  The pull-down list at the top right lets you choose a control set to show at the right of the applet.  The five control sets can each be used to manipulate a different part of the simulator.

(On 2020-08-30, I made minor changes to make the applet run in Java Web Start now that all mainstream browsers have dropped support for the Java plugin.)

The control sets[# Top]

• Simulator, where you can run the simulator, enter notes, and save or close the simulator
• Lake, where you can create land or water and create or destroy many fish at once
• Fish, where you can create, destroy, and manipulate fish
• Fish Types, where you can create, destroy, and manipulate fish types
• Tagging Areas, where you can create, destroy, and manipulate tagging areas

Run from the Web[# Top]

To run FishSimulator from the Web using Java Web Start, click here or run javaws https://mattmccutchen.net/fishsim/FishSimulator.jnlp at the command line.

Run locally[# Top]

Download FishSimulator.zip and FishSimulator.jnlp to the same directory and then run FishSimulator.jnlp with Java Web Start.  Depending on your OS, you may be able to double-click it in the file manager or run javaws FishSimulator.jnlp at the command line.

FishSimulator vs. AP MBS[# Top]

For your amusement, my FishSimulator stacks up against the AP Computer Science Marine Biology Simulation as follows:

• The AP simulator was written in perfect object-oriented style; that's its whole purpose.  Mine uses some classes but wasn't written with extensibility in mind.
• The AP simulator has cute graphics; mine has numbers.
• In my simulator, the fish have preferences for different parts of the lake.  The user can edit the lake shape and specify different preferences for different groups of fish.  The AP simulator doesn't have either of these, although they could be added without much difficulty by extending Fish and implementing Environment.
• My simulator has tagging; the AP one doesn't.