Team Crosspoint

Measles Outbreak Simulation

Team Members: Joshua Au, Bernice Yue, Lucia Nguyen (California Crosspoint Academy, Hayward, CA)

Year: 2025-26 Coding Gene.us Challenge

Abstract

The main goal of this project is to create a simulation where we can graphically visualize the spread of measles over time. By allowing students to manipulate the variables in a simulator, we will also be able to educate them on the topics of exponential growth, reproductive number (R0), and herd immunity. The project will be divided between three main roles: the data scientist/biologist, the simulation programmer, and the interface designer. Each of these key roles also contains tasks that are arranged in three main categories: data collection, coding, and presentation.

Once again, the first role in this project is the data scientist/biologist. Their first task will be to collect specific data related to measles cases, such as the incubation period (aka the time of exposure to measles) and the baseline reproductive number (R0). The biologist’s second job will then be to define three distinct variables in a measles case study (the total population, initial infected count, and reproductive number) using dictionaries and variables in Python. Finally, the presentation/lesson aspect of their role will be to explain how measles spreads over the years and specify the information about the reproductive number.

As for the simulation programmer, their data collection task will be to compile a series of public health reports about the effectiveness of measles mitigation methods into a singular dataset. Their coding task will be to build a simple SIR model with a time-step loop that uses the reproductive number value to calculate how daily populations change in three distinct categories of people: Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered (SIR). They will also have to create a visual demonstration that shows how the epidemic curve (a graph in the xy coordinate plane where the x-axis is the time interval of the measles cases and the y-axis is the number of new measles cases per time interval) is altered severely when the R0 value itself is only altered slightly.

Last but not least in the list of roles is the interface designer. The interface designer will perform research on the spread of Measles in low vs. high density populations, providing inputs for the epidemic curve the simulation programmer will create. Through the model, students will be able to manipulate the inputs and see the various results based on the different population density. Research on the effects of the Measles vaccine will also be included as well so students will be able to see the additional impact it has on the Measles’ infection rates. From this lesson, a student can learn the importance of all three roles of this project (the data scientist/biologist, the simulation programmer, and the interface designer) and gain important knowledge about the effects of measles from taking on each of these roles.

Submission Files

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