EDTC651

how to plant and care for flowers

Simulation project (outline)

Yi & Gayle

4/27/2011

The target audience: Any person who wants to learn how to plant and care for flowers.

Name: Gayle & Yi

Project title:   How to Select, Plant and Care for the Flowers

Type of simulation: Conceptual simulation

Target audience: Any person who wants to learn how to select, plant and care for flowers.

Learning objectives:After completing this simulation, the learner will be able to:

1. Find their home zone on the planting zone map2. Identify soil properly prepared for the seed or bulb3. Identify how to properly water the seedling4. Identify the relationships of plant and environmental variables (water, lights, and

fertilizer) in both a healthy and a poor growing environment.

Assessment: 1. Their home zone on the planting zone map and correct answers on 2 multiple-

choice planting zone questions

2. Healthy growing environments by answering 2 “what is wrong with this picture” multiple-choice questions

3. The cause and effect of changing the variables of sun, water, and fertilizer

Simulation design:1. Operation design2. Planting duration design3. Simulation Workflow design4. components design5. Interface design

Simulation design

Operation design:During the simulation process, player will do the following operation:

1. Before plantinga. Their home zone on the planting zone mapb. Soil properly prepared for the seed or bulbc. Planting environments (condition)

2. During plantinga. Daily take care(water, light if it’s indoor planting)b. Weekly take care (fertilizer, weeding)c. Randomly take care (bug killing)

3. Helping operationsDuring the whole simulation process, we will have full information appear at proper place of the simulation interface to help player to select right operations and learning how to select right operations.

Planting duration design:We divide the planting duration into 3 stages:

Stage 1: From seeds to plants Stage 2: From plants to before blooming Stage 3: After blooming

begin

Select planting zone

Select soil type

Growing environments

Daily take care(water, light..)

Weekly take care

End

Simulation Workflow design:

Simulation components design: (Components will be used to simulate the whole planting process and the

relationships between the plant and the conditions)

Component 1: Planting Place –

Parameters: weather, soil types, natural conditions, Capability for plant.

Comments: Values of parameters will be defined when the player choose planting zone and soil type.

Component 2: Plants (Flower)-

Parameters:

Basic parameter: plant type: variables (seeds, bulbs, annuals, and perennials)

Parameters for regular growth (water, light, Fertilizer) Parameters for damage (weed, insect)

Comments: Plant component has basic parameters. For example, plant type will be seed based/ bulbs based. Annuals / perennials.

Plant has some parameters we need design to simulate the regular growth (water, light, Fertilizer). For example: 100 roses need water at least 0.5 and at most 3 gallon per day, if the player water lower than 0.5 gallon or more than 3 gallon, the roses will be slow down the growing rapid or even damaged. So we need design the water capability for each plant in our simulation system.

Component 3: Tools – (on tools panel)

Watering tool

To simulate the operation: we define the simulation rule. For example, when players use the watering tool, they can click it and input water volume they want to water.

Weeding tool

When the field has some weeds, the player need use this tool to kill weeds.

Fertilizing tool

Same as the watering tool, the players need use it based on the plants type and current condition of the planting field and the flowers’ condition.

Light tool

Same as the watering tool

Component 4: Help Tools – (on every proper place). We design some text, audio, video material and link them to the related place to help player choose right components to choose plant, place and take care their flowers.

Simulation interface design:

1. Before plantinga. Their home zone on the planting zone mapb. Soil properly prepared for the seed or bulbc. Planting environments (condition)

We have several operations for player to get the basic planting conditions. These operations include “choose planting zone”, “choose soil type”, and other conditions.

A. Planting zone

B. Soil type

C. Planting environments

2. During plantinga. Daily take care(water, light if it’s indoor planting)b. Weekly take care (fertilizer, weeding)c. Randomly take care (bug killing)

We have three stages here to simulate the growing process, in each stage, players have “daily take care” operations (such as water, light ……) , “weekly take” operations (such as manuring fertilizer, weeding) and randomly operations(such as insect control)

Stage 1: Seeding

On the interface, the initial condition will show on the condition panel1. And the players can use the tools on the control panel1 to add water

During this stage, over time, the seeds will grow to young plants, but the water and fertilizer reduce, once the water and fertilizer reduce lower than the normal level, the simulation system will warn players to water and fertilizer the field, then the values of the on the condition panel will change to normal or a little more than normal values (depends on the player’s operation. If player add too much water, the system also warn player that the water is too much! )

Stage 2:

Similar with the stage 1, but values on will be a little difference because the plants need more water and other values. The related values and their relationship will be designed as several formulas to control the value’s change.

After a short simulation time, if everything the player is doing good, the process will automatically go to the next level (stage).

Stage3

Similar with stage2, but some values will be different.

3. Helping operationsDuring the whole simulation process, we will have full information appear at proper place of the simulation interface to help player to select right operations and learning how to select right operations.

*Watch the PPT file to see the detail description about the simulation!