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Finite State Machines using Alice Stephen Cano CIS 4914 Senior Project Wednesday December 5th Project Summary Motivation: In order to teach AI in a University setting, specifically high level AI algorithms such as Finite State Machines, there needs to be a foundational environment to work in. Save students the time of building characters or settings for artificial intelligence and instead focus on the algorithms themselves Project Summary Problem: Can a successful Finite State Machine be assembled in the Alice programming environment? Alice is a tool made to teach beginners how to program, but contains the ability to easily render a 3D world (free at http://www.alice.org) Is Alice’s “simple” environment enough to handle high-level programming concepts? Project Summary Solution: Create a 3D world with a single actor that is controlled by a finite state machine User interaction adds additional states and extra situations to the FSM Start simple and build up, seeing what Alice can and cannot handle Literature Search Anon, http://www.alice.org, Carnigie Mellon (as-of Oct 10th) Steve Rabin, AI Game Programming Wisdom 2, Charles River Media (Dec 2003) Alice tutorials and other work done in Alice What is a Finite State Machine? Good examples for single-actor FSM How to debug and enhance your finite state machine Ian Millington, Artificial Intelligence for Games, Morgan Kaufmann (June 2006) More basic information around Finite State Machines “Ant colony” finite state machine involving many actors Work Performed In Alice, created a single-actor finite state machine Main actor, the “penguin” character, goes between 3 different states when left to run, and can enter two different states based on user interaction. Created two “objects” the user can put into the scene State Diagrams Main functions Penguin.FSM: Main “always running” function, had a looped action that shows the finite state machine has entered a certain state. Example: if in “roam” state, call Penguin.roam, which makes the penguin take a few steps Also contains a check to see if conditions have been met to enter a new state Main functions Penguin.Statecheck Checks the environment of the character to see if the state needs to be changed Performs the necessary actions for pre- and poststate change processing Example: Sit down to eat when hungry, turn to run and hide when scared Conclusions: Positive While missing some high-level functionality, a simple FSM can be built in Alice Enough functionality exists for the purpose of educational ventures in AI. Very fun, easy to use Conclusions: Negative FSM not as “smart” as it could be due to programming limitations If/Else statements only good available logic Animations must finish before “moving” on, cannot have multiple threads running to constantly check states Example: Penguin will not notice fear-enducing skeleton until he is done with his walk cycle Cannot dynamically add objects to the environment Future Work Could a more skilled Alice animator create sharper state transitions? Can the Java base of Alice be directly modified to be more inclusive of AI technology? Can other AI algorithms also be replicated in Alice? Is there a better programming environment for educational purposes of AI? Q/A time and quick notes Thanks to Professor Schmalz, Dr. Dankel, and my fellow Senior class I wish you all a great winter break, and a great spring semester!