Changing the Percent Values on the Sampler Plugin

[Shauna Hedgepeth]

I want to run a simulation using a spinner where “yes” happens 4.5% of the time, and “no” happens 95.5% of the time. I’m familiar with how I could do this in Tinkerplots, but I can’t quite figure out how to change those values in the sampler plugin with CODAP. I feel like I’m missing something obvious, but I would love to demo this in my NCTM session as alternative to Tinkerplots for classrooms with only Chromebooks.

Thanks!

[Bill Finzer]

Hello Shauna,

The current CODAP sampler does not make this easy, more’s the pity. But it is possible, though with the collector rather than a spinner. (You may have already figured this out?) I’ll list my steps and I’ll include a link to the document that has the result.

1. Add the Sampler plugin (of course)
2. With the Table tool, make a <new> dataset.
3. Click on the green rectangle on the far left of this table and choose New Cases.
4. Enter 200 and press the New Cases button.
5. You could hand enter 191 “yes” values and 9 “no” values, but it’s simpler to use the formula: if(caseIndex<191,”yes”,”no”)
6. In the Sampler, choose the Collector device.
7. Fill in the number of items and samples you want and press Start.

Whew! Sure hope we get to continue Sampler development soon!

Here is a link to a worked out example.

[Kimberly]

Is there a way to use a formula that has more than 2 options? I’m trying to create a table describing a bag of M&M’s that contains 12 red, 11 yellow, 5 green, 6 orange, 5 blue, and 16 brown candies. Can I use a formula to do this or do I just need to type each entry by hand?

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Kimberly,

Regarding how to make a dataset with different numbers of colored balls: You don’t actually have to write a formula. You can do it using CODAP’s case table as shown in this video.

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