Engineering Projects/Poppit/Howard Community College/Fall2011/550 cjf

Problem Statement

 * What is the best way to play Poppit so that one has the least amount of balloons at the end of each game?

Team Members

 * CR
 * JH
 * FAB

Summary
Poppit is a stress reducing activity (game) played on a PC or mobile device. The objective of the game is to pop as many balloons as possible before you run out of moves. Balloons can only be popped in groups of two or more (chunks) like-colored balloons. Obviously, there are numerous ways to play the game. Our team’s goal was to play the game, collect statistics, and determine the best strategy to eliminate the greatest number of balloons by the end of each game.

Link to individual team members poppit page:


 * CR
 * JH
 * FAB

Poster
Picture depicts the end result of one of the methods we used during our chunking analysis.

Story
Poppit is an online game where one tries to eliminate all the balloons by the end of the game. Our goal was to analyze how one goes about “chunking” the game of poppit. Chunking can be described as a way in which a human or device goes about breaking down large amounts of information or patterns into smaller ones. The goal of our team was to come up with methods on how each of us chunked the games of Poppit we played. The first task of each member was to come up with strategies to eliminate the most balloons. Then, each of us would use those strategies while playing Poppit to see which one worked the best. We would then record the number of balloons left at the end of each game so that we could compare how well each strategy worked. Finally, based on our data and observations, we would construct the most effective strategy to eliminate the greatest number of balloons in Poppit.

Our analysis showed that starting at the top row and eliminating columns by popping like-color groups of balloons worked the best.

Occasionally a "pin" is available to pop a single balloon. We chose not to use the pin when we were developing our strategies.

Materials List

 * Computer with Google Chrome installed on it to play the Poppit Application.
 * Internet access to play the game online or download the game application.
 * Individual engineering notebooks so that each of our team members can record reliable data.
 * A calculator to find statistical conclusions based on our data.

Tutorials

 * The game Poppit can be accessed by following this link: Poppit.
 * Instructions on how to play Poppit are found within the game's initial walk through.
 * Visit POGO.com for game instructions.

Next Steps
Any followup work should build on the approach we selected. We encourage teams to continue working from the top and eliminate one column at a time. We recommend that future developers anticipate the consequence of each of their moves. Thinking two to three moves ahead will allow the player to form larger groups. It is critical to avoid single balloons in the top row. If a single balloon is left in the top row it cannot be eliminated.

We opted not to use the pin to pop individual balloons. Follow on groups can take advantage of the pin to pop single balloons with the goal of forming groups or eliminating isolated balloons.