# Falling Chickens

In this circle we investigated something called the “falling sand pile”. But sand is boring, so instead we studied falling chickens! The primary rule of falling chickens is

When 4 chickens land in someone’s backyard, they “break out” and go to the neighbors’ yards instead.

# Cave person games

What kinds of games can be played using just stones? It turns out quite a few! In this session we investigated three games in particular. Continue reading Cave person games

# Games with modular arithmetic

In this discussion we began with the following simple game. Two players alternate naming a number from the set {1,…,n-1} and after each move the running total is computed modulo $n$. You can’t play a number that’s already been played. The first player who arrives at a running total of 0 loses.

What kind of outcomes can this game have? Does either of the two players have a winning strategy? Does the answer depend on the value of $n$? We investigated these questions and many more in this session, which was led by three undergraduate researchers at BSU: Dan Kondratyuk, Scott Navert, and Stephanie Potter. Continue reading Games with modular arithmetic