vesterberg.se

Have you ever been to a cheap hotel and experienced the difficulties of getting a comfortable temperature in the shower? I have. Did it occur to you when battling with the tap, that you might not be the only shower-taker?

Inspired by a chapter in Morecrofts book, I made a model of the shower problem in Vensim software. The model (part of it shown below) simulates the experience of taking a shower and adjusting the tap to get a comfortable temperature. The setup is like a game. You start the simulation,  and in the diagram you see the shower head temperature changing “live” as you adjust the tap with the slider in the upper left corner. You compete with the computer that manages a hidden shower and your goal is to have as little temperature difference as possible for 120 seconds. The hidden shower shares the same hot water pipe as you use. It means that you are affected by the other person fiddling on his tap.

Below you can see one of my simulations (click on it to enlarge). it is very tricky to reach your goal, when someone else competes for the same resources; a very good metaphor for situations in real life.

Each shower-taker has an adjustment strategy appropriate for a single shower. His mindset is that of a local world. His good intention to stabilize temperature gives surprising effects and sometimes even increases instability. He gets frustrated and upset, because he does not understand how things work together. It is a confusing world, difficult to manage. A world of dependencies and feedback loops.

A central concept in system dynamics is feedback loops. We are surrounded by feedback loops that generate and control change through time. Delay is another key concept; the result of our actions does not appear at once. To successfully manage the world around us, we need to understand these concepts. Feedback loops and delays work together and builds structure gives rise to the dynamic behaviour of a system. Sometimes we can manage or control our environment, but most of the time all we can do is try to navigate the best we can in the world.

The thought of teaching the dynamic behaviour of systems by gaming is a very interesting thought. I would like to go deeper into that. Anyone out there with the same interest?