For today's class, you are going to work independently with a program that will enable you to see the effects of different selection strategies when a genetic algorithm is applied to searching different fitness landscapes.
Your assignment for today is to type up a lab report outlining your activities. The exact format of the report is up to you. What I'm primarily interested in is what settings you used for your various experiments and what conclusions you draw from them. Compose your lab report as a Word document and email it to me before 5:00 p.m. on Friday, February 16. Use ‘CPSCI 307 lab report’ as the subject line of your email.
While I've described this as an independent project, it's OK with me if you want to work in a group and compare results. (A good place to work would be the lab in the Ferry building.) Each group member, however, must write up an independent lab report.
How much work do I expect you to do on this? About 60 minutes experimenting and taking notes, and about 15 minutes putting together your lab report. In other words, a full class period. (I don't want to rush you, though, which is why the assignment isn't due until 5:00 p.m. on Friday.)
To make efficient use of your time, be sure to read through the documentation on the webpage before you start using the applet.
Finally: here's the applet: Genetic Algorithm Experiment.
Note: Some of you have been having trouble getting this applet to work properly. It appears to work fine in Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP with the Java 1.5 plugin, which is the setup in the CAVE and in the Ferry lab. The default web browser in both locations is Firefox, on which the applet doesn't appear to run correctly, but IE 7 is available on those computers, so use it instead. Or, if you feel adventuresome, you can download the source JAR from the webpage and deal with it on your own terms.
[ Return to the CPSCI 307-01 homepage ]
Brian J. Rosmaita <contact me>