Interim: Problem Definition:
The young and elderly who may gather in great numbers at public buildings, such as the auditorium at Artesia High School, need to be made safe by various safety procedures and certain implementations that has been made a part of the building's architecture and other things added to it. Any area in which there may be large numbers of citizens at any given time must be kept up to the standards of the Fire Marshal in order to insure their safety. The auditorium at Artesia High School is a very complex facility with a wide variety of fire ignition points and various flammable materials. We aim to test this facility to observe whether or not its implementations assist or hinder the safe exit of the people inside the building.

Problem Solution:
Things within the auditorium used to assist in musical, dramatic, and other community or school productions of activities that require a stage to perform and be maintained present a possible problem of fire hazard. Various flammables used within in the auditorium can catch flame unintentionally; backstage there are dry pieces of wood for stage management, paints, stains, costumes, and the curtains themselves that can easily catch flame and spread it quickly. In case of a fire emergency, the exit routes and building design could have either benign or detrimental affect on the safety of those in the building.
Our code will simulate a fire breaking out inside the auditorium while it is filled with people. We will also be testing the effectiveness of safety items such as various automatic firewalls inside the building, along with more common devices such as smoke detectors, smoke vents, fire hoses, and fire curtains. The simulation will also evaluate changes in such factors as:
1.Population age (children, teens, adults, elders, etc.)
2.Mobility (handicapped, agility, etc.)
3.Residents familiar with the building
4.People from other communities attending events
5.Availability of exits

Progress to Date:
So far, we have researched various aspects of flocking and swarming behavior (and their math models), fire behavior, combustion, and pedestrian movement in normal and in panic situations.We plan to meld these elements into our simulation so that it is realistic and can be used for real life situations. Our hopes are to design this model in a way that allows us to import different buildings and designs and have them simulate correctly and provide accurate results in the areas of fire safety.

Sample code:
globals [
fire-temperature
spontaneous-combustion-threshold
normal-combustion-threshold
]
patches-own [
on-fire?
temperature
fuel
is-wall?
]
to setup
clear-all
set fire-temperature 2
set spontaneous-combustion-threshold 1
set normal-combustion-threshold 0.5
draw-basic-walls
ask patches [
initialize-patch
draw-color-gradient
]
ask (patch-at random-pxcor random-pycor) [
catch-fire
draw-color-gradient
]
end

to iterate
dissipate-heat
ask patches with [on-fire?] [
burn
]
ask patches [
spread-fire
draw-color-gradient
set temperature (temperature * 0.99)
]
end
to initialize-patch
set on-fire? false
set temperature 0
ifelse (shade-of? pcolor blue) [
set fuel 0
set is-wall? true
] [
set fuel 50
set is-wall? false
]
end
to dissipate-heat
diffuse temperature 0.75
ask patches with [is-wall?] [
set temperature 0
]
end
to draw-color-gradient
if (not is-wall?) [
ifelse (on-fire?) [
set pcolor yellow
] [
set pcolor scale-color red temperature 0 2
]
]
end
to burn
set temperature 2
set fuel (fuel - 1)
if (fuel <= 0) [
set on-fire? false
]
end

to catch-fire
set on-fire? true
set temperature 2
end
to spread-fire
if ((not on-fire?) and (fuel > 0)) [
ifelse (temperature >= spontaneous-combustion-threshold) [
catch-fire
] [
if ((temperature >= normal-combustion-threshold) and (any? neighbors4 with [on-fire?])) [
catch-fire
]
]
]
end
to draw-basic-walls
let vertical-wall (floor (max-pxcor / 2))
let horizontal-wall (floor (max-pycor / 2))
ask patches with [
(((pxcor = vertical-wall) or (pxcor = (0 - vertical-wall))) and ((pycor >= (0 - horizontal-wall)) and (pycor <= horizontal-wall)))
or (((pxcor >= (0 - vertical-wall)) and (pxcor <= vertical-wall)) and ((pycor = (0 - horizontal-wall)) or (pycor = horizontal-wall)))
] [
set pcolor blue
]
ask patches with [
(pycor = horizontal-wall) and ((abs (pxcor)) <= 5)
] [
set pcolor black
]
end

Expected Results:
We expect the building to suffer heavy fire damage and be rendered unrepairable, leading to the demolition of the auditorium. In the realm of people safety, we expect that most of the citizens will escape. Of the few expected deaths, we believe that most will be of the elders or children 'breed' because of the amount of stairs and the likelihood of poor lighting and visibility. For the most part we have refrained from predictions of the simulation because we want the simulation to be accurate, not influenced by our ideas of what should be.

Team Members:

  Jefferson Mayberry
  Casey Haldeman
  Destry Kinnibrugh
  Shane Wilson

Sponsoring Teacher: Randall Gaylor

Mail the entire Team