Challenge from last time
Three people are standing in line and all are looking in the same
direction. That is, person 3 (P3) can see person 2 (P2) and person 1
(P1). P2 can see P1, but not P3. P1 can see neither P2 nor P3.
Now consider the following: all of the people know that there exist 5
hats. They know that 3 hats are black and 2 are white. They
all know that each of them is wearing a hat. Assume P1, P2, and P3
are perfect logicians and hear one another speak.
First, P3 says, I don't know what color my hat is.
Then, P2 says, I don't know what color my hat is.
Now it's P1's turn. Judging by what he heard P3 and P2 say,
do you think P1 knows the color of his hat? If so, what is it?
JavaScript you should know
- What's a function? Why do we use them?
- Do all functions have a return statement? Why/why not?
- What is a parameter?
Warm Up
Remember this formula (for equations of type ax2 + bx + c)?
x = {-b + (b2 - 4ac)0.5} / 2a
Each group has 5 minutes to come up with the function and write the
result on the board. The user should be able to call the function
in this manner:
var a = 1;
var b = 2;
var c = 1;
x = calcX(a,b,c)
Simulator
One of the possible uses of software is to simulate events. This
includes cases where there may be too many variables for a human to
comprehend or where the actual event is very expensive to do either
financially, socially, or in terms of risk. Examples: how a disease
might spread in population, how the effects of high wind gusts will
act on an airplane wing, airforce dogfight.
Your job is to design a part of a computer program that would act as
a simulator for teaching irresponsible 15 year-olds how to drive.
What functions would the program need in order to control various
parts of the car (ie. mirrors, gas/break pedals, etc..). For every
function you come up with, write a header for it. Come up with
at least 20 functions. You will present them to the class. Below is
an example of one of the functions you could have written (it doesn't
count toward your 20). Think about all of the things that you do
while driving. Think of what kind of information the functions need
as parameters and should return as return values.
function moveWindow(dPos, wNum)
// REQUIRES: dPos - Desired position of window
// wNum - Window number (1=driver, 2=front passenger,
// 3=left back, 4=right back)
// RETURNS : new position of window
A challenge for next time
Note: this is not really a logic problem. This is more an
engineering/ingenuity problem.
There are 3 lightbulbs on the 4th floor. There are 2
light switches in the basement. They are connected to 2 different of
the 3 lightbulbs on the 4th floor. You can only make 1
trip from the basement to the 4th floor. You start in the
basement. Upon making your trip to the 4th floor, you
should know which light switch goes to which lightbulb and which of
the lightbulbs does not have a switch in the basement.