School of Dreams (121)

The School of Dreams team (#121) is from Los Lunas. This year they've submitted a project titled Rock, Paper, Scissors Analogy.

Proposal
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_proposal1112.php?team_id=121

Rock, Paper, Scissors Analogy

Team: 121

School: School of Dreams Academy

Area of Science: Math and Statistics Proposal: Our proposal for a Supercomputing Challenge project is to use Math and Statistics and the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors as an analogy for discovering the right percentages to decide the best probable outcome. As an example; using this project to discover the right percentage for an Army tanks most important aspects, such as fuel economy, the amount of armor it has, and its ability to shoot.

Team Members:

Bryson Zemanek Samuel Avendano Cade Garcia

Sponsoring Teacher: Liz Finley

Interim Report
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_interim1112.php?team_id=121

Rock, Paper, Scissors Analogy

Team: 121

School: School of Dreams Academy

Area of Science: Math and Statistics

For our project we have completed a simple, small scale simulation. In the simulation agents hunt down and battle each other with the same rules as the game Rock, Paper, Scissors. We will be adding random percentages to each agent to vary the outcomes of the simulation. As far as research goes, we haven't done any as of yet.

Team Members:

Bethany Tanner

Sponsoring Teacher: Liz Finley

Interim Comments
My name is Aaron Soto. I am a computer security instructor in Baltimore, Maryland. I went to school in Las Cruces where I was a Challenge participant in 2000. The Challenge team have asked me to look over the interim report for your project to help you stay on track for the finals in April. Here are my comments and questions. You don't need to reply to me, but hopefully these questions will help you with your face-to-face evaluation in April and also when presenting your final project during the Challenge Expo in April.

Before I talk about your project, I notice you did not list a mentor. If you don't have a mentor, I would strongly recommend you find one. A mentor is someone (other than your teacher) who has studied your area of Science and is willing to meet with your team every once-in-a-while to give you advice. A mentor is key to making your project a success.

Looking over your interim report, I must say that you have not provided as much detail as some of the other teams. Hopefully, you've made some progress since December. Particularly, I did not see any details regarding your simulation. You mentioned that you'd completed a small-scale simulation, but was it purely computational or visual. What tools did you use (for instance, StarLogo)? These are details the judges will be eager to know more about.

Similarly, your interim report mentioned you had not done research yet. Before you get too far into your simulation, it's always a good idea to see what other researchers have done in your area. What tanks have proven successful in the real world? How do modern day tanks balance firepower, manuverability and top speed? Is there a single tank design has been proven to be better than the rest, or are different tanks better in different scenarios? Could you use specifications from tanks which have actually been produced in your model? If so, do the results match up with what happened in the real world?

Regarding your model, you should be prepared to tell a judge why you've chosen a Rock, Paper, Scissors game. On the surface, it seems like it's oversimplifing what sounds like a much more complex problem. How, specifically, do you decide which tank "wins"? Is there an element of chance? Might multiple tanks of a poorer design ambush a single tank of a better design? Do you take any kind of strategy into account? Does your model "learn"? (In other words, will tanks which tend to loose be produced less, making way for more successful tanks to appear on the battlefield?)

Finally, whether your project is purely computational or ends up being visual, you should be prepared to present statistics. What was the indicator of a poorly performing tank? What tank (or tanks) proved the most successful? Be prepared to compare your model against the real world. If it matched up, be prepared to explain how. If there were differences, be prepared to explain why.

Overall, I think you've got a fun and exciting project. If you choose to make it visual, your simulation might be very fun to watch. I'm interested to see which direction you go.

Good luck!

-- Aaron (Aaron Soto 19:59, 7 February 2012 (PST))