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Carnival Project
Carnival Project
Carnival Project
Mrs. Dewey
21 March 2017
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The heart of any carnival is the variety of games that it contains. An owner of a local
carnival realized the importance of new and creative games and asked a few builders to help her
out with creating a game as a new addition to the carnival. The builders were asked to create a
game that involved no skill required from the player and a profit for the carnival owner.
Since the builders were required to create a game that involved no skill, a lot of
brainstorming was done to plan the perfect game with results that could only occur by chance
alone. It was finally decided to build a game that involved a spinner and a plinko board and costs
two dollars to play. A disc is used to play the plinko board game and is dropped into one of the
(#) holes at the bottom of the board through a labyrinth of pegs changing the route of the disc.
Each landing hole is labeled with the amount of money earned by the player when the disc is
dropped into that specific hole. These winning amounts are $2.00, $1.50, and $0.50 without any
multipliers.
The spinner shown in Figure 1 consists of three x1 multipliers, two x2 multipliers, and
one x3 multiplier, and the player flicks the spinner to find the multiplier that the arm lands on,
which indicates whether the amount of money won by the disc drop will double, triple, or just
The disc must be dropped into the single hole right above the board in order for the round
to be legal and fair. It cannot be placed in the middle of the board, for example, as an advantage
to the player, and it cannot be dropped higher than the opening of the board at the top to the
operator’s advantage.
There are many methods to analyze a game, and finding the probability of winning is one
of them. Since there are different paths and outcomes, it was crucial to consider every aspect of
the game as the owner in order to obtain the correct probability to the benefit of the carnival.
The basic structure of a plinko board and its pegs are shown in Figure 1. The slots are at
the bottom for the disc to land in. Since there are many paths to get to one slot, the sample space
would be extremely long, but it is easy to say that the sample space consists of all possible paths
The first step to finding the probability of the game is by finding the probability of the
plinko disk landing in each of the seven slots, given that there are six rows of pegs. The first step
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to doing this is to find the amount of ways it is possible for the plinko disk to land in that
particular slot, which can easily be found using Pascal’s triangle. For example, if the number of
ways that the disk can land in the third slot needs to be known, all that would have to be done is
plug 6C3 (6th row 3rd term of the triangle) into a calculator. The calculator will read fifteen.
Step two to finding the probability of the disk landing in a particular slot: Now that the
number of paths are known for that slot, the number of paths is multiplied by 0.50 to the power
of how many rows of pegs there are. This is because every peg gives the disk a 50/50 chance of
it going left or right. Since the disk goes through six rows of pegs, 0.50 has to be multiplied by
itself six times. Continuing with the prior example of the third slot; fifteen would be multiplied
by 0.506. This gives a final probability for the third slot; .2344.
Once the probability of each slot is found, the probability for the amount that a player
wins each time they play can be calculated. This is done by multiplying a slots probability by the
ratio of the multiplier that the probability is being calculated for using, as seen in Figure 1. For
example, for the probability of the disk going into slot three given that the player spun a times
two multiplier, the probability of slot three, seen in Figure 3, would be multiplied by the ratio of
times two multipliers are on the wheel. According to Figure 1, two of six slots on the wheel is
times two multipliers, so P(slot3) would be multiplied by the ratio two over six, or two sixths.
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The probabilities and winnings (in player point of view) for each slot are seen below in Tables
1-3, along with expected values (operator point of view) in Figures 4-6.
Calculations for the rest of the slots are shown in Figure 3 above.
There is an expected amount of money that the game will gain per person. This is also
called the expected value. In order to compute the expected value of the overall game, the cash
in either Table 1, 2, or 3. Then, the sum of the products in one distribution is calculated to find
the expected value of that multiplier. However, with subtracting this price to play, the total
Table 1
Probability Distribution Chart (x1 multiplier)
$ -0.50 -1.50 -2.00 0.00 -2.00 -1.50 -0.50
In Table 1, the probability distribution is shown for the x1 multiplier. It is clear to see the
probability (in the second row) of winning the different cash amounts shown in the first row.
= $0.54
Figure 4. Expected Value of x1 Multiplier
To find the expected value of this distribution, the sum of all products from multiplying
Table 2
Probability Distribution Chart (x2 multiplier)
$ 1.00 -1.00 -2.00 2.00 -2.00 -1.00 1.00
In Table 2, the probability distribution for the x2 multiplier is displayed. The second row
shows the probability of getting the cash amount in the first row.
= $0.16
Figure 5. Expected Value of x2 Multiplier
To then find the expected value of the distribution, add together the products from
Table 3
Probability Distribution Chart (x3 multiplier)
$ 2.50 -0.50 -2.00 4.00 -2.00 -0.50 2.50
In Table 3, the probability distribution is shown for the x3 multiplier. The second row
displays the probability of getting the first row, which is the cash amount.
= $-0.05
Figure 6. Expected Value of x3 Multiplier
To find the expected value, add the products of each cash amount multiplied by the
= $0.65
Figure 7. Expected Value of Game Per Player
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In Figure 7, the expected value of money gained by the owner per player is shown. The
expected value of the x1, x2, and x3 multipliers were all added together to find a final sum of
$0.73. This means that per player, the owner should expect a $0.65 gain to the carnival.
Simulation 1:
Now that the theoretical probabilities have been calculated, experimental probabilities
can be used to to back up the theoretical data. One of these methods include actually testing the
game. For this game, both the wheel and the plinko board.
Table 2.
Trials of Playing the Game
The table above shows the plinko board and spinner for 50 trials. Using methods seen in
the previous section, the expected value was calculated to be $0.90 from the owners point of
view.
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Simulation 2:
A simulation of our game was run with a total of 500 trials. In order to do so, a column
was numbered 1-500, which represents the trial numbers. The next column created would have
500 randomly generated numbers. These were conceived using the random integer (randInt)
function on a calculator. The numbers 1-3 represent the spinner landing on the x1 multiplier,
numbers 4-5 represented landing on the x2 multiplier, and the number 6 represented the x3
multiplier on the spinner. After this, the third column consisted of numbers collected from a
https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/plinko-probability/latest/plinko-probability_en.html). Once
in this link, the option named lab was clicked on, the number of rows was set to 6, and the binary
probability option remained at 0.50. The dropping of each ball in this simulator represented one
trial. The slot that the ball landed in was the number written down in the column. This was done
500 times. The fourth column had the prices of each trial that had been generated based on the
previous two columns. In order to determine the price, the randomly generated numbers
determining the multiplier show which probability distribution chart to look at. Then the plinko
number from the simulator would determine the column of the probability distribution chart,
with the corresponding price. For example, say the number generated on a calculator was 3 and
the plinko simulation slot number was 2. Because the calculator number was a 3, that implies
that one would need to look in the x1 multiplier probability distribution chart. In that chart, the
plinko number of 2 would correspond with the column number and the price of $-2.00. This is
also modeled in the table below with the first and last 10 trials and in Appendix B where all 500
Table 3
Trials of Playing the Game
Table 2 shows the first ten trials and the last ten trials of the simulation with 500 trials total.
Another way the game was tested was through a Java program.
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Simulation 3:
The figure above shows the simulation that the game went through, this time with Java.
The Java program was written by assigning each probability, for getting a particular dollar
amount, a range (ex: P(1) = .0 to .2345, P(2) = .2346 to .4827, etc.). The Program then generates
5000 random numbers, 1 through 10,000, simulating 5000 people playing the game. Then each
of the 5000 random numbers were sorted into their appropriate probability range. In the
With this data, the average amount of money gained can be calculated for each trial.
Money lost by players winning = (prize $) (times the simulation won that amount)
= (-2.00)(2379)+(-1.50)(466)+(-1)(300)+(0.50)(234)+(1.00)(40)
Figure 9 shows the average amount of money gained by the game per trial on the Java
program. This was done by multiplying the money gained or lost by the amount of times it was
gained or lost in the 5000 trials. These were then added up and divided by the 5000 trials.
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V. Summary:
Throughout the whole experience of making Cloudy with a Probability of Meatballs the
work was divided equally. Dylan took charge and built the plinko board and spinner because of
his supply of the materials and that he really enjoys constructing things. He also did the java
program with close monitoring of Rogina and Alyssa. Then, from there, Rogina and Alyssa
evenly divided up the essay and conquered it, but they made sure to double check the other
person’s part in order to fully comprehend the whole project. Dylan did so as well once he had
because of its sheer uniqueness and diversity. The theoretical probability is a gain $0.65 from the
operator’s perspective. Experimentally, the expected values ranged from $0.63 to $0.73 . With an
expected gain like these, the carnival’s business will be flying in no time!
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Appendix A
Own Trials
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Appendix B
Appendix C
package carnivalProject;
import java.util.Scanner;
relativeFreq = sum/5000;
System.out.println("The relative frequency for breaking even or higher is " + relativeFreq
+ ".");
}
}
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Directions:
3. Level the disc to the point where it's right above the hole at the top of the plinko board.
It is best to leave the least amount of space possible between the disc and the hole.
4. Drop the disc. Record which hole the disc landed in.
6. Take whatever multiplier it landed on and multiply it by the amount of money won
by the plinko disc drop. This is your prize!