2008 Mathematical Contest in Modeling
Feb 23, 2008
This year I had the opportunity to participate in the MCM. Starting from Thursday the 14th at 8PM to Monday the 18th at 8PM, me and two other people spent almost every waking moment figuring out how to generate Sudoku puzzles of varying difficulties. Sound like fun? It was, except for having to come back to reality (i.e. tons of calculus homework).
I don't feel things ended up that good. But I also didn't feel good going into it. One of the math professors talked me into it, because they desperately need programmers. The problem is that I'm just a freshman, and only in calc 2, not exactly ready for something like this. Though it's not like the programming involved would be out of my range, I was just unsure of how much I could do in a limited time.
Now for the most part, you can model everything without a computer, but it makes taking a thousand samples of data a lot easier if you have a simulation on the computer. As the "programmer," I dived into the code right away. But as I think about it now, I should have spent a lot more time working the problem out mentally. On Monday morning, while my teammates were in their analysis class, I had finished all the coding I was going to do, and they had the current version of our paper. So I starting thinking, and I came up with some new ideas. Ideas that were really great, but unfortunately we were way too close to the deadline to start implementing anything.
It's because of this that I feel that we did a horrible job on the project. I'm sure it's not that bad, but I'm also sure it's not great.
Anyways, for those who are curious, I have a pdf of the paper and the Java source code here:
http://timegames.net/2008MCM/
I don't feel things ended up that good. But I also didn't feel good going into it. One of the math professors talked me into it, because they desperately need programmers. The problem is that I'm just a freshman, and only in calc 2, not exactly ready for something like this. Though it's not like the programming involved would be out of my range, I was just unsure of how much I could do in a limited time.
Now for the most part, you can model everything without a computer, but it makes taking a thousand samples of data a lot easier if you have a simulation on the computer. As the "programmer," I dived into the code right away. But as I think about it now, I should have spent a lot more time working the problem out mentally. On Monday morning, while my teammates were in their analysis class, I had finished all the coding I was going to do, and they had the current version of our paper. So I starting thinking, and I came up with some new ideas. Ideas that were really great, but unfortunately we were way too close to the deadline to start implementing anything.
It's because of this that I feel that we did a horrible job on the project. I'm sure it's not that bad, but I'm also sure it's not great.
Anyways, for those who are curious, I have a pdf of the paper and the Java source code here:
http://timegames.net/2008MCM/
posted by Ciph3rzer0 # 12:56 AM 
