Re: [Phys-l] estimation competition?

[John Mallinckrodt <ajm@csupomona.edu>]

On Apr 29, 2007, at 8:49 AM, Brian Blais wrote:

> I was thinking it would be fun to have a competition in my class  
> estimating various
> quantities.  It could be things like fractions of colors or M&Ms,  
> or high and low
> temperatures, or whatever.  What I would like most is that they  
> report not just the
> estimate, but the uncertainty as well.  Then I'd like to rank them  
> in some way, and I
> am not sure what is the best way to do this.
>
> Intuitively, I want something that has the following properties:
>    1) for the same uncertainty, larger deviations of the estimate  
> from the actual
> yield lower rank
>    2) for the same estimate, larger uncertainty yields lower rank
>
> Has anyone every tried this?  I think it is important to  
> communicate that the
> uncertainty in an estimate is every bit as important as the  
> estimate itself.
>
> Perhaps its just an ill-conceived idea.  :)

I don't think so at all.  Helping students understand the critical  
nature of error analysis and estimation in scientific work is, IMO,  
one of the most important things we can do in intro lab.

Accordingly, I strongly recommend an activity described by my  
colleague, Peter Siegel, in the April issue of The Physics Teacher  
called "Having Fun with Error Analysis."  (TPT, v45, pp. 232-234.)   
You mention M&Ms so maybe you've already seen it.

Briefly, Peter holds a competition at the first meeting of each lab  
class in which student teams make measurements to determine the  
number of M&Ms in a package along with an estimate of the  
uncertainty.  Then the M&Ms are counted.  The winning team is the one  
whose estimate brackets the correct number with the smallest  
uncertainty.  The activity properly mimics the incentives in  
scientific work for neither overestimating or underestimating  
uncertainty.

John Mallinckrodt

Professor of Physics, Cal Poly Pomona
<http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm>

and

Lead Guitarist, Out-Laws of Physics
<http://outlawsofphysics.com>