Rock, Paper, Scissors 3
posted January 19, 2000 as a Math Forum EPoW

Introduction: In the Rock, Paper, Scissors problem series, students investigate the concept of probability through an investigation of the fairness of games. In this part of the series, students run a simulation where three players participate in a game with different, more complex, rules.

Where's the Math: Rock, Paper, Scissors takes advatage of the computer's ability to rapidly iterate a problem , helping students visualize probability over large sets of data. Graphs facilitate identification of trends as students experiment with problem variations between random throws and set throws in an even game. Standards: Data analysis & probability

(The applet for this problem is currently unavailable)

 top

Sample submitted solution:

From: Ryan, age 14
Jordan, age 13
Mac, age 14
School: Issaquah Middle School, Issaquah, Washington

1. What is your prediction for each player's score? Why do you think it will turn out this way? (Answer this first. Then play the simulation. Then come back and answer the other questions.)
I think that vikcy will win and angelique will have a little more than Ed. I put a graph out and it ended up that ed won one out of nine, angelique won two out of nine and vicky won six out of nine.

2. How many points did each player get when you ran the simulation?
It was about on average angeleque gets about ten more than ed, vicky gets three times as many as angelique and about four times as many as ed.

3. How do these results compare with your prediction?
they are the same as my prediction.

4. What is the winning percentage for each player?
ed gets 11.1% angelique gets 22.2% and vicky gets 66.6%.

top