|
Think Outside the Box
Quite often in mathematics, students are taught one ‘method' of solution for each particular type of problem. That's not always the case. Sometimes a problem can only be solved by approaching it from a very different angle to the usual path.
Instead of looking at specific mathematical problems, let's look at something a little more exciting - adventure games by way of illustration (the best being text adventure, where you can use your imagination more).
I remember many years ago, the first home computer I bought, was a Taiwanese version of the Tandy, and it ran very simple software. The only games you could buy (on cassette tape) were text based. One of my first was a Scott Adams text based adventure. You had to chop down a hollow tree, go inside the roots and explore the world inside (if you stayed outside too long you were bitten by chiggers) and collect « TREASURE » .
There was one particular part, where I (my character in the game that is) was walking along a narrow ledge there was a bear in the way. Previously I had collected some « ROYAL HONEY » , which I logically fed to the bear. The bear fell asleep, so I was able to step over him and go to the royal chamber to get more treasure. However after I fed the bear, a voice would call out saying, “Don't waste honey, get mad instead'.
I was so intent on giving the bear honey first, that I tried many different ways of retrieving the honey from the bear. Most of the ways involved using the knife which I had found, to cut open the bear and get back the honey. The usual game response was to say something like, “I don't know how to cut the bear” etc.
After spending a few fruitless hours with this approach, I decided to think about the advice again. So instead, I went up to the bear, kept the honey and got mad instead - by yelling. The bear was so surprised, it fell off the ledge, and I was able to proceed to the royal chamber, with honey intact.
|
