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| Integrating Empirical Methods into Computer Science | |
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Project Goals Required Skills Lab Repository Related Papers Collaborators Feedback |
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Empirical Lab RepositoryTitle: Simulation and Volleyball Scoring Author: Dave Reed, Creighton University, davereed@creighton.edu Possible Courses: CS1 Empirical Concepts Introduced: simulation, analytical reasoning Computer Science Concepts Used: loops, counters, input/output, arithmetic operations Summary:
This assignment involves simulating the play of a volleyball game between teams
whose relative strengths
are known. For example, if it is determined that team 1 is 10% better than team 2,
then their likelihood
of winning any given point will be 55% (as opposed to 45% for team 2). The student
must write a program
that probabilistically determines the winner of each point, keeps a running score of
each game, and
displays the winner. Once they have written the code that simulates a single game,
they must write
additional code to perform repeated simulations and then report the winning
percentages of each team.
Finally, they must perform repeated simulations using their program and analyze the
results.
Variations: If desired, this assignment could be extended to include the simulation of games using the rally scoring scheme described at the end of the assignment. The students could then be asked to hypothesize which scoring scheme would tend to greater exaggerate the differences in talent, and then use the two programs to test their hypothesis. Other hypotheses could similarly be proposed and investigated, such as which scheme would tend to produce shorter games, or whether game lengths would be more or less variable under each of the schemes.
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