Making a turtle stop and then go after a special event - Robotic lawn mower simulation project - netlogo

Question

I am trying to simulate a robotic lawn mower on Netlogo. My first goal was it finds its way home to recharge itself when the battery is low.
This is now done (thanks Luke !) but I can't figure how to make the lawnmower stop when it reaches the house (it keeps moving 2 patches around). Therefore my energy slider goes infinitely below zero.
I first thought of adding an event "recharge" and placing it after "check death" in to go with a if instance. But :
How do I say if car goes on specific patch : stop and get energy ? Should I use a special patch color for the house and then code if car goes on blue patch..... ?
Could adding the recharge event at the end of the to go elements would possibly create a conflict because recharge only goes when on low battery ? Would putting it in check death be a solution ?
Then I would like it to go back to work after instant recharge.
Any ideas ?
Here's the code :
breed [cars car]
cars-own [target]
breed [houses house]
to setup
clear-all
setup-patches
setup-cars ;;represent lawn mower
setup-house
reset-ticks
end
to setup-patches
ask patches [set pcolor green] ;; Setup grass patches
ask patches with [
pxcor = max-pxcor or
pxcor = min-pxcor or
pycor = max-pycor or
pycor = min-pycor ] [
set pcolor red ;; Setup the borders of the garden
]
end
to setup-cars
create-cars 1 [
setxy 8 8
set target one-of houses
]
end
to setup-house
set-default-shape houses "house"
ask patch 7 8 [sprout-houses 1]
end
to place-walls
if mouse-down? [
ask patch mouse-xcor mouse-ycor [ set pcolor red ]
display
]
end
to go
move-cars
cut-grass
check-death ;; Check % battery.
tick
end
to move-cars
ask cars
[
ifelse [pcolor] of patch-ahead 1 = red
[ lt random-float 360 ] ;; see red patch ahead turn left.
[ fd 1 ] ;; otherwise it is ok to go.
set energy energy - 1
]
tick
end
to cut-grass
ask cars [
if pcolor = green [
set pcolor gray
]
]
end
to check-death ;; when low energy lawn mower will go back to house
ask cars [
ifelse energy >= 150
[ set label "Energy ok" ]
[ set label "Low Energy, returning to base"
set target min-one-of houses [distance myself]
face target
ifelse distance target < 1
[ move-to target ]
[ fd 1 ]
]
]
end

Answer 1

You can use a logical flag (eg charging?) in conjunction with a counter (eg charge-time) to do this. Try modifying your cars-own definitions like this:
cars-own [target charging? charge-time]
and setup-cars like this:
to setup-cars
create-cars 1 [
setxy 8 8
set target one-of houses
set charging? false
]
end
Then you can have the mower do different things based on whether charging? is true or false. Try modifying your move-cars and check-death to accommodate these changes (side note- you've got a tick in both go and move-cars):
to move-cars
ask cars [
ifelse charging? [
set charge-time charge-time + 1
if charge-time > 14 [
set energy 200
set charging? false
set charge-time 0
]
] [
ifelse [pcolor] of patch-ahead 1 = red
[ lt random-float 360 ] ;; see red patch ahead turn left.
[ fd 1 ] ;; otherwise it is ok to go.
set energy energy - 1
]
]
end
to check-death ;; when low energy lawn mower will go back to house
ask cars [
ifelse energy >= 150
[ set label "Energy ok" ]
[ set label "Low Energy, returning to base"
set target min-one-of houses [distance myself]
face target
ifelse distance target < 1
[ move-to target
set charging? true
]
[ fd 1 ]
]
]
end
I suggest you change energy a turtle variable like car-energy so that the turtles values are independent of your slider. That would mean you could have multiple mowers and they could reset their energy level to the slider setting once they are charged! You would just include a line like
set car-energy energy
in your setup-cars (and then modify so that energy in your car procedures is instead car-energy).