REPORT
euro.wgt & hilo.wgt
Contents
Description
Educative goals and technical problems
Conclusion
Description
euro.wgt
This Eureka problem is the presentation of a simple formula
converter of French francs to Euro:
( x + x/2 ) / 10 = y, where x=FF and y=euro
In other words, to convert FF you just add to it the half
and divide it with 10.
hilo.wgt
This Eureka is a simple very old child game that almost all
of us have played it once in a lifetime.
The student tries to guess a random number. Each time he gets
a hint whether this guess is bigger or smaller than the random
number. It is proposed to the student that the best approach
is the binary search but the student is free to choose his own
way of guessing the number. He can easily find out as his trials
are being counted, that by using the binary search algorithm
he achieves his goal extremely faster.
TOP
Educative goals and technical problems
euro.wgt
- GOALS I conceived this Eureka inspired from the transitional period
for Euro that is starting in a few days with the arrival of
New Year.
It's target population is of course children
(with no age limit during the transitional period
and I dare to say adults also because such changes brings
always confusion to everyday life.
- PROBLEMS While I was creating this Eureka I realised a
technical problem that turned out to be another Eureka
inside this Eureka!
I noticed that in the result board I was getting two numbers
in a row. The second one was the right one but the first
seemed to be irrelevant. As I realised, this was caused by
the delay of the division with 2. This is common
to electronics caused by the lack of synchronization.
It seemed to me a very interesting approach so I decided to keep this
eureka as it is in order to use it also in a Physics course
for electronics that could became a very good example.
hilo.wgt
- GOALS The educative goal is the experimental approach of the
binary search algorithm. This eureka should follow the theory
and the analyses of this algorithm in classroom and then use this
to test it in real and see the student with his own eyes how
effective it is. Of course, always comparing with the simple
and random guessing. Because there are a lot of other algorithms
that could be also as effective as this algorithm or even more.
- PROBLEMS The problem I faced was that this eureka didn't work(!!!)
from the very beginning for the simple reason that Eureka initializes
everything with zero so it started having :
random number = guess number = 0
and that ended the procedure.
I solved this problem by putting a condition that controls the result
to be different of zero.
TOP
Conclusion
In both Eurekas I tried to make the student to participate
even in the simplest way by choosing the number to be converted
in the euro.wgt, or the more interesting one in the hilo.wgt
by playing the game all the way to the end guessing the number.
I have to admit that it took me quite some time to decide what kind
of Eureka I would create. It definately needs a lot of
creative imagination and when a good idea comes up usually
stucks in technical details because Eureka software doesn't
provide a lot of tools in order to create all kinds of problems.
TOP
Back to "Travaux" page
by Vivian Synteta (6/1/99) updated 6/1/99
synteta8@etu.unige.ch