Crafts Time

IT'S FUN DAY MONDAY OMG SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

So I've been at the beach for 4 days now, and that of course means a lot of reading for those less inclined to enter the water. And so I learned something new:

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How to Make a Hexapawn Educable Robot (HER)

Materials:

1) 24 Matchboxes or Similar Containers (Preferably blank)

2) 3-4 Bags of M&Ms

3) Paper

4) 4 Colored Sharpies (Orange, Blue, Green, Red, Brown, and/or Yellow)

5) 3 Pennies (or other coins)

6) 3 Dimes (or other coins)

Procedure:

1) Copy these diagrams onto the matchboxes:

2) On each of the diagrams, color all the arrows in each diagram differently.

3) Open the bags of M&Ms and sort them by color.

4) Eat the two colors of M&Ms whose corresponding Sharpie you do not have. For example, if you don't have a yellow or brown Sharpie, eat all the yellow and brown M&Ms.

5) Put an M&M in each box for the number and color of the arrows on it. For example, if there is a 

    red arrow on the box, put in a red M&M.

6) Draw a three-by-three grid and put the coins on opposite sides, like so:

You are now ready to face your computer in Hexapawn!

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How to Play Hexapawn:

Hexapawn is a one on one game that you play against HER in order to teach it how to win! To win, you must either:

1) Capture all of your opponent's pawns,

2) Get one of your pawns to the opposite side, or

3) Be the last player to be able to move.

Your pawns move the same way that they would in chess-- they can only move forward, except they must capture diagonally-- except there are no double moves and en-passants. Good luck!

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How to Operate your HER:

First, arrange the matchboxes as shown in the diagram above. This makes the game run smoother.

Then you can start the game. You make your move first.

Here's how you operate the robot:

1) Find the matchbox whose diagram is either the same as the current board position or a mirror image.

2) Shake the matchbox to mix the M&Ms.

3) With your eyes closed, open the matchbox and pick a random M&M.

4) Place the M&M on top of the matchbox and observe the color of the M&M.

5) Find the corresponding arrow for the color of the M&M.

6) Make the move as indicated by the arrow.

3.5*) If there are no M&Ms in the box, the robot automatically loses.

The education of the robot is based on a reward/punishment system. When the robot wins the game, the M&Ms that are on top of the boxes are placed back inside. When it loses, take away the M&M that represents the last move that the robot made; *if a box is empty, the HER loses and you take away the M&M on last move's box.

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How the HER Works

Imagine a huge probability tree that represents the outcomes of each game. Each splitting of branches represents the robot's decision-- and so the end of a branch is either a win or a loss for the robot. When you remove M&Ms, you are, in essence, cutting off the branches in which the robot loses. The robot has a big advantage by going second, and so it will eventually have the ability to win every game it plays.

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Stay coolio,

John

NEXT WEEK: Ramsey Numbers