Project Description
The programming and probability project's purpose was to apply probability to a situation by creating our own interesting interactive game somehow involving the aspect of probability. Most of us used an online programming website to create our own unique probability-based game. We also acquired a lot of more involved, than say, grade school, knowledge on probability in order to apply some of that knowledge to our games that we would later be sharing with the exhibition crowd. I feel like we were expected to learn how what you put into something affects the outcome, in a a mathematical sense. This corresponds with programming a game because every small action you make on a program like the one we used has some sort of outcome, and being able to identify the change that takes place as a result of the action you made helps to develop both your mathematical and critical mindsets.
Project Overview
We started the project by doing some smaller hands-on kind of probability activities. One of the activities, "the game of pig" required us to roll a die among a group and continue to roll the die, adding up your score with each number you rolled, until you rolled a one. Then, all of your points would be discounted. This game kind of re-introduced us into probability by showing us what taking chances yields. After re-introducing probability, we went into some more involved work that would have us working with concepts like independent events, multiple events, theoretical probability, conditional probability. We completed worksheets such as "Dr. Drew, the dog ate my homework", and "who is cheating?",experiments involving flipping a coin/rolling dice in order to come up with different probabilities of certain events occurring. We used two-way tables to organize the information we got from our experiments, and later on, after programming and exhibiting our games, we were introduced to expressing the probability of an event or multiple events occurring through equations.
Game Description
My game, called "Collect the Gems" involves probability because when activated, a certain number of blue agents, or "gems" spawns randomly and a certain number of grey agents, or "rocks" spawns randomly. The outcome of the game all depends on how well you maneuver yourself, but there definitely is a probability of collecting all 50 of the "gems" or being "eaten" by one of the rocks. In order to maneuver yourself, you hold down the arrow keys. A score box on your upper right will show you how many gems you've collected, and a sound will reward you every time you collect one. Your ultimate objective is to collect all of the blue "gems"! You will be able to see images of the game below. Click the button below to play my game!
The programming and probability project's purpose was to apply probability to a situation by creating our own interesting interactive game somehow involving the aspect of probability. Most of us used an online programming website to create our own unique probability-based game. We also acquired a lot of more involved, than say, grade school, knowledge on probability in order to apply some of that knowledge to our games that we would later be sharing with the exhibition crowd. I feel like we were expected to learn how what you put into something affects the outcome, in a a mathematical sense. This corresponds with programming a game because every small action you make on a program like the one we used has some sort of outcome, and being able to identify the change that takes place as a result of the action you made helps to develop both your mathematical and critical mindsets.
Project Overview
We started the project by doing some smaller hands-on kind of probability activities. One of the activities, "the game of pig" required us to roll a die among a group and continue to roll the die, adding up your score with each number you rolled, until you rolled a one. Then, all of your points would be discounted. This game kind of re-introduced us into probability by showing us what taking chances yields. After re-introducing probability, we went into some more involved work that would have us working with concepts like independent events, multiple events, theoretical probability, conditional probability. We completed worksheets such as "Dr. Drew, the dog ate my homework", and "who is cheating?",experiments involving flipping a coin/rolling dice in order to come up with different probabilities of certain events occurring. We used two-way tables to organize the information we got from our experiments, and later on, after programming and exhibiting our games, we were introduced to expressing the probability of an event or multiple events occurring through equations.
Game Description
My game, called "Collect the Gems" involves probability because when activated, a certain number of blue agents, or "gems" spawns randomly and a certain number of grey agents, or "rocks" spawns randomly. The outcome of the game all depends on how well you maneuver yourself, but there definitely is a probability of collecting all 50 of the "gems" or being "eaten" by one of the rocks. In order to maneuver yourself, you hold down the arrow keys. A score box on your upper right will show you how many gems you've collected, and a sound will reward you every time you collect one. Your ultimate objective is to collect all of the blue "gems"! You will be able to see images of the game below. Click the button below to play my game!
Your player is the red agent, shown above.
Just click "Run Code", "setup", and "forever" to reset the game. You can control the agent's movements using the arrow keys. |
Try to collect all of the blue "gems" and avoid the grey "rocks"!
Project Reflection
I overall found this project as being a test of my critical thinking and various habits of mathematicians. I never really expected myself to go into programming and create my own game, but found it to be an interesting change of pace in the subject of math that I'm accommodated to. I'm also glad I was able to go into something I wouldn't normally challenge myself with so that I was able to experience something I otherwise wouldn't experience. I feel like I should've tried out different programs other than Starlogo nova though, given that we had the option of using different programs and experimenting. I could've at least tried a different program, such as Scratch, to see what other possibilities for my game it could've opened up. Another thing I kind of felt I could've done was base my game off of a more complicated concept, like tetris. The reason for me not really following through with this idea was because I found Starlogo nova to be more complicated with more structural games like this one, but I could've experimented with a different program in order to create a Tetris-inspired game. One thing I felt successful in during the project was conducting tests and solving for probability. Probability is a component of math that I feel familiar in, yet was glad to face some more challenging aspects of, including conditional probability and theoretical probability. A habit of mathematicians I used in the processes of finding various probabilities was being systematic because this was a huge part of conducting tests by rolling die, flipping coins, and recording results as well as making calculations.