What Is StarLogo?

StarLogo is a programmable modeling environment for exploring the behaviors of decentralized systems.
Decentralized Systems are orderly patterns that arise without a centralized leader.
Examples of these in our everyday life are:

bird flocks, traffic jams, and ant colonies

What Can I Do With StarLogo?

StarLogo was designed primarily for use by students. With StarLogo, you can learn to model different systems by creating thousands of graphic "turtles". By giving these turtles commands, you can watch the turtles interact with each other and their environment.

A Sample StarLogo Program

This is a sample StarLogo project that simulates traffic jams on the highway.

Each turtle car has some specific rules to follow.

First, if a car has no other car in front of it, it will speed up:

Second, if a car has another car in front of it, it will slow down:

Last, if there is a policeman on the road, the cars will slow down:

Finally, if we create many cars all following these 3 rules, we can see the outcome of the entire system.

You, too, can create your own StarLogo programs like this one.

Here are the simple commands to make the cars move:

fd forward

Example:

fd 50

moves the turtle forward by 50 steps

bk backward

Example:

bk 50

moves the turtle back to where it originally started, 50 steps backward.

In addition to these easy commands, there are many other commands that can be used for the turtles .

But turtle commands aren't the only commands possible. There are also objects called patches which can be used for creating a colorful setting. Last, there are observer commands for controlling the environment.

Click below to see a certain list of commands:

An Alphabetical Listing

Beginners

Advanced

Mathematical Commands

A Table of Commands and their Abbreviations

How StarLogo Began

Mitchel Resnick of the Epistemology and Learning Group at the MIT Media Laboratory conceived of StarLogo and implemented the original version on the Connection Machine.

The Macintosh version of StarLogo was designed and implemented by Brian Silverman, Andrew Begel , Mitchel Resnick , and Randy Sargent. Many others (including Hal Abelson, Seymour Papert, Uri Wilensky , Larry Latour, Mario Bourgoin, Ryan Evans, Rick Borovoy, and Owen Johnson) have contributed ideas to the design and use of StarLogo.

Downloading StarLogo

If StarLogo seems like the type of program you would like to explore more, you can download it here.

If you would just like to learn more about StarLogo and decentralized systems, you can read Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams by Mitchel Resnick.

Last Modified: 2/5/97

To give feedback, send mail to starlogo-request@media.mit.edu