Comments on Project 4 Preliminary Talks

Comments, made in no particular order and no author attribution

• Some comment should probably be made about the assumption of the catching radius and why it was made.
• Try to clearly state what the strategies for the VR and TS are in each case that you consider.
• You can probably state ``facts that were given to us'' separately from ``assumptions,'' because you're not having to make any additional assumptions for the facts.
• Do you want to do anything more with terrain than assume that it's not an issue? (My bet: probably not.) It would, however, be easy in a closing ``conclusions'' or ``discussion'' section of a paper to comment on the realism of this assumption and the possible ramifications of it being incorrect, thereby instilling a sense of thoughtfulness to your presentation.
• How important is any assumption about acceleration?
• Can you give any justification for choosing the reaction time of 0.05 sec?
• ``It's'' means ``it is,'' while ``its'' is the possessive form of ``it.''
• You should be sure to explain why the critical evasive/turn distance for the thescelosaurus is 2.21 or 1.83 m.
• Is there a specific angle at which the thescelosaurus always turns? Why is this angle chosen?
• If you assume that the ``catch radius'' is 0 m, can you say anything about how your results would change if it weren't 0? (You might be able to add a sentence or two, thus addressing the issue effectively while not adding too much to the burden of calculating everything.)
• Is it possible to quantify in some way how error in judgement might change your results? If not, why not?
• You might want to mention how reaction time influences the different aspects of the model (in particular, is it built into the turn/response model? if so, for which dinosaur(s)?).
• Did anyone else think, when the phrase ``the velocoraptor is done after 15 seconds'' was said, of someone watching it cook in a microwave? Just a thought.