CS452 - Real-Time Programming - Winter 2013

Lecture 18 - Projects

Give trains roles and objectives. For example,

Passenger train travels on a repetitive route meeting a schedule.
Freight train travels to random destinations as fast as possible.
Objective is to deliver as much freight as possible while keeping a passenger train on time.

Another example,

Another example,

Trains are buses, which travel long routes from one place on the track to another.
At the end of the route is a scheduled trip to a different location.
When a bus is late arriving, the dispatcher must find another, unused bus to leave at the scheduled leaving time.

The track is a graph.

Many games are played on graphs

For example, watchmen and bandit.

One train is the bandit, which tries to move from one hide-out to another.
The other trains are watchmen, who try to prevent the bandit from getting to a hide-out once he is out in the open.

Another example, PAC man

One train tries to cover as much track as possible.
Other trains try to trap him so that he can't get reservations that would allow him to keep moving.

In the games you play for pleasure, the user normally controls one or more of the game entities.

Students often want to make an interactive project. It has been done successfully in the past, but constructing a usable interface is a challenge.

It's a good idea to develop without an interface, using an artifical "intelligence" to drive the train(s), then add an interface when that's robust.

Make the trains do something neat that seems impossible. All I have is examples.

Try the following exercise.

Choose a sensor.
Put the train on a course that will cross the sensor.
Run the train at a constant speed.
Give the speed zero command at a location that stops the train with its contact on the sensor.
- You will need to experiment to find out exactly when to give the stop command.
Calculate the time between when you gave the command and when the sensor triggered.
Look for regularities.

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