Section D 2017

Introduction

You are advised to spend no more than 70 minutes on this section. Questions will use the Skeleton Program and the Preliminary Material.

This page will identify some of the alterations / improvements that can be made to the skeleton program. It is important to explain what problem the alteration is tackling, and explain how to make the improvement itself.

Improvements

1. Add the code to allow foxes to have a gender
2. Make the probability of a rabbit dying increase with age, ie extra 5% per term
3. Reduce the reproductive rate of a rabbit with age
4. Add a way for a disease to kill rabbits in warrens
5. Implementing weather changes that affect animals
6. Storm or fire affects number of animals in a certain radius
7. Validation for menu options for the coordinate input
8. Constraints for number of animals placed (when option two is selected)
9. Create extra presets, such as Rabbits Only or Fox Land of Plenty
10. Display a message when a cell with no fox is selected for fox inspection...Adding a loop too
11. Display a message when a cell with no warren is selected for warren inspection...Adding a loop too
12. A fox moves in a random direction if they haven't eaten enough food that turn
13. Foxes have a random chance to move towards the closest warren each time period
14. If a fox eats more food than it needs its reproduction rate/coefficient increases
15. Add an option on the menu to find the largest warren
16. record data for totalDeadFoxes and totalDeadFoxesAge, then use these to generate the average age, and use to set lifespan of foxes

Extension of the Skeleton Program

One question is likely to focus on adding new features and functionality to the program.

1. If a rabbit is contained within a warren, create a den class for foxes
2. Another predator for rabbits - eagles
3. Another prey for foxes - chickens
4. Connected warrens - tunnels