NetLogoLab is the technological infrastructure that connects NetLogo and the physical world. It can be used for robotics, interactive art, scientific investigations, and model validation. This infrastructure was created at the CCL by Paulo Blikstein and Uri Wilensky in 2005 as part of the Bifocal Modeling project. For more information, please check the new and old websites, where you will find academic papers, models, and demos.
NetLogoLab is comprised of the following software and hardware components:
- A NetLogo extension to control a robotics or data-logging board.
- A robotics or data-logging board (also know as a serial interface board, or analog-to-digital board).
- Sensor and actuator toolkits.
- NetLogo models.
NetLogo's robotics/data-logging board of choice is the GoGo Board, an open-source, easy-to-build, low-cost interface designed by Arnan Sipitakiat and Paulo Blikstein, first at the MIT Media Lab, then at Northwestern's CCL, and is in continuous refinement. Other robotics hardware can be used with NetLogo, including those that are commercially available, such as Arduino boards, Vernier and Pasco sensors and actuators, Phidgets, and VEX kits, but specific extensions have not yet been developed for each of those platforms. So far, only the GoGo Board extension is available with NetLogo's standard distribution.
The GoGo Extension for NetLogo provides primitives to communicate with a GoGo Board. This enables the user to connect NetLogo with the physical world using sensors, motors, light bulbs, LEDs, relays and other devices.
A GoGo Board is a low cost, general purpose serial interface board especially designed to be used in school and for educational projects. It was created by Arnan Sipitakiat and Paulo Blikstein at the MIT Media Lab in 2001, and has been actively developed since then. It is currently used in over 10 countries, such as the United States, China, Thailand, South Korea, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Malaysia, and Egypt. For more information see the the gogo board about page.
Up to 8 sensors (i.e., temperature, light, pressure) and 4 output devices (i.e., motors, light bulbs, LEDs, relays) can be connected to the board simultaneously. The board also has a connector for add-on devices (such as displays, Bluetooth or ZigBee wireless modules, voice recorders, real-time clock, and GPS).
NetLogo models can interact with the physical world in two ways. First, they can gather data from the environment. This information can be used by the model to change or calibrate its behavior. This data is gathered using electronic sensors, which can measure a wide range of phenomena: temperature, light, touch (see pictures below), pH, chemical concentration, pressure, etc. See the Gogo docs here for info on the the sensors that are included with a GoGo board kit.
The second mode of interaction between NetLogo and the physical world is the control of output devices, or "actuators" - motors, light bulbs (see pictures below), LEDs, and more complex devices that include these outputs such as toys, remote controlled cars, electrical appliances, and automated laboratory equipment. See the Using Output Ports section of the GoGo docs for more info.
The GoGo board also comes with Terminal Connectors to wire in additional sensor that don't come included. Additional sensors and actuators can be found through online retailers such as Digikey, Mouser, Phidgets, Spark Fun, and Solarbotics.
To make use of the GoGo Board extension and the NetLogoLab framework, users need to create NetLogo models using the special primitives made available by the extension. Later in this document, we will provide examples of models that do this.
Gogo Boards can be purchased from the SEED Foundation.
The GoGo Board connects with the computer via the USB port. Turn the GoGo Board on using the switch behind the power connector: the board will beep twice and the red light will turn on.
Plug in your GoGo board and go to https://code.gogoboard.org/. The website should prompt you to download the gogo plugin for Windows. You can now try using the NetLogo GoGo extension. If you don't have Java installed, you will be prompted to locate your java executable. You will need to install Java to get the extension to work. We recommend using the Java 17 which is the version used by NetLogo as of NetLogo 6.3.0, installer here: https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/#java17. You can check which Java version your system is using by running java -version in the command line.
The GoGo extension requires no special installation on Mac OS X. If you don't have Java installed, you will need to install Java 17 which is the version used by NetLogo as of NetLogo 6.3.0, installer here: https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/#java17. You can check which Java version your system is using by running java -version in the command line.
Many versions of Linux require no special installation.