The Game of On-Sets

We have now moved along to playing On-Sets (in addition to Equations and Presidents) during our practices.

Clague players will already know everything in this post, but just in case some parents or people interested in learning Academic Games are reading, here is a (very) simplified version of what On-Sets is about. 

On-Sets is a game of set theory, and therefore a game of logic. The game consists of cards, cubes, a timer, a "flub", and a board. 

Cards have between zero and four colored dots on them -- blue, red, green, or yellow.  This means there are 16 (=2^4) cards in the set.  Only some of them are dealt (face-up) and these become the "universe".

There are several types of cubes.   Eight have colors on them.  A yellow cube means the set of all cards which have a yellow dot on them -- and similarly for blue, red, and green.  Seven of the other cubes mostly have set operators such as union, intersection, and complement.   [If you're new to set theory, it might be helpful to see the Wikipedia Page on basic set theory]

The three remaining cubes have digits on them.  One player -- the "goal-setter" -- uses these cubes to form a numeric goal.  Players must then be prepared to write an expression using set theory where the number of cards in the universe described by their formula equals the goal that was set. 

The rest of the game is similar to Equations -- as cubes are moved onto the various sections of the board it changes which cubes must (or must not) be used in solutions, and players look for opportunities to "challenge" the moves of their opponents.

There is a lot more to On-Sets -- particularly at the Adventurous level that the Clague team plays at.  The complete rules and other documents about the game can be found at the Michigan Leagues of Academic Games website

Challenge Match results

By request, the results of the challenge matches:

We Love Pi 3.94
Bob Lee's Pizza Delivery Service 4.07
Rated Ag-13 4.25
Raisin Brains 3.80

As a result, every member of Rated Ag-13 who was present tonight will get a 6 added to their Friday tournament scores, Bob Lee's players will get 4s, We Love Pi 3s Raisin Brains 2s.

Last practice of the year on Friday.  We will play another round of Ling, our usual Presidents Progression and maybe start learning Propaganda.  Reminder that On-Sets worksheets are due on Friday.

Late November Updates

Hello All!

Just a quick note to provide some updates on practices, tournaments and worksheets.

Equations worksheets were turned in by the students on Monday.  For the most part, I was very pleased with the time and effort the students put into the worksheets.  I told the students at practice that I think that these worksheets might be the single hardest thing we do in AG, so I was very proud of their work.  Most students turned in worksheets.  Over half the students got ten or more sheets completed with at least a third of the students getting the maximum number of points.  I will check off points for the students and return the worksheets Monday next week.  I would encourage kids to keep working on the worksheets if they didn't complete all of them, and to save the worksheets to study from for future tournaments.  I have posted the answer key for the worksheets in the right sidebar so that each student can check their own answers.

I have also posted the On-Sets worksheets on the right.  These worksheets are considerably easier than the Equations worksheets, I believe, and there are fewer of them.  Any student can get up to ten points for completing these worksheets, and they are due before winter break (our last practice is December 20).  Although we won't spend as much time in practice working on these worksheets as we did with the EQ worksheets, I would still encourage every kid to print them out and bring them to each practice.

Our mini-Presidents tournaments are going well.  As many of you may know, on Fridays after our cube game tournament, we have been reading five Presidents questions, keeping score for everyone, and tracking the average Presidents score for each grade.  As you might guess, the eight graders have the highest overall average, but the 7th graders have been closing the gap, and the sixth graders have been as improving as well.  To improve Presidents scores, I would recommend every student find a good book about the Presidents, or a good digital source of information, and spend at least 10-15 minutes per day reading and / or studying that material.  You can find good, cheap Presidents books at most bookstores (they still have those?), or on Amazon.  There are a host of Presidential trivia apps you can get for either an IPhone or an Android based phone.  And you can find Presidents quizzes on the national Academic Games website (agloa.org).  I will also post some Presidents worksheets that can be used as study guides a little later in the year.

Finally, we have begun learning our fourth game, Linguishtik.  A game that tests students' vocabulary, and their knowledge of English grammar, many students struggle with the game when we first learn it because those are subjects that aren't taught very much in school.  I told them to imagine what it would have been like to learn Equations with knowing how to subtract or multiply.  I told them not to get discouraged, and to make sure they take good notes when they are learning.  I will post some Linguishtik worksheets which contain a lot of lessons within them sometime before next Monday.  Those worksheets will not be due until after we return from break in January. 

So much for this being a quick note (!)  Hope you are all having a good Thanksgiving break - eat lots of turkey (or tofurky if you prefer), watch some parades or some football, and maybe study some Pres ;-)

On-Sets worksheets and Eqs Answer Key

The On-Sets worksheets are posted on the right.  They are due before winter break (12/21 is our last practice).  All students can get up to ten points for completion of worksheets.  Also posted is the answer key for the Equations worksheets that the students have already completed and turned in.
Linguishtik worksheets (due in January) will be posted soon.

On-Sets State Champs!!!

In the state final for On-Sets, The Justice League outlasted Pikachu and a team from Grand Rapids to claim the 2011 State Championship for Middle Adventurous On-Sets!

Congrats to all the Clague students for their stupendous set theory knowledge!

On Sets First Day Scores

Divsion I
Pikachu 55 points, 2nd, two points back
Peanuts 41 points, 3rd

Division II
Yoda 41 points, 4th place

Divsion III
Justice League 60 points, 1st place
Fantastic Four 41 points, 4th place, three points back of third

On-Sets State Champs!!!

Equations and On-Sets playoffs concluded this evening. In the Equations playoffs,
Phineas & Ferb won their semifinal by one point while Looney Tunes lost by six points. In the final the team that had beaten Looney Tunes in the semifinal beat Phineas & Ferb for their school's first adventurous equations state title.

In the On-Sets playoffs, both Looney Tunes and Phineas & Ferb won their semifinals matches eliminating the need for a final match and both were decalred State Co-Champions.

Congratulations to the entire team for their superior mathmatical abilities.

On-Sets Second Day Scores

After all four rounds:

Division I
Totoro 92 points- 3rd place

Division II
Phineas & Ferb 111 points - 2nd place - wildcard

Divsion III
Looney Tunes 107 points - 1st place

Division IV
Spongebob Squarepants 93 points - 2nd place

Looney Tunes & Phineas & Ferb now move onto the playoffs tonight

On-Sets First Day Scores

First Two rounds of On-Sets

Division I
Totoro - 45 points - 4th place, 5 points behind first

Division II
Phineas & Ferb - 51 points - 2nd place, 4 points behind first

Divsion III
Looney Tunes - 50 points - 2nd place, 3 points behind first

Division IV
Spongebob Squarepants - 41 points - 5th place, 1 point behind third

More score tomorrow

Things to do over break to get ready for States

Hello All,
Hope you are enjoying all of this snow we are getting. Go outside and have some fun!
When you get back in, we have some suggestions for things you can do to get ready for the State tournament next week (or in two weeks for the 6th graders):

-Print out the Presidents packet and begin to fill them out. If enough people print them out, we may go over the answers at practice next monday.
-Print out the Propaganda cheat sheet, and use it to review all of the techniques. We will post some propaganda questions later this week to test how well you studied.
-Do problems in the WFF packet (Basic Part 1 / Basic Part 2 / Regular). Check your answers in the answer key. We are going to play a basic and a regular WFF game here via the comments section in the next couple of posts, which anyone is welcome to join.
-Go back and study your On-Sets and Equations packets. Check your answers against the answer keys (On - Sets and Equations).
-Invite a friend over, or go over to a friend's house. Studying is more fun with friends. You can also play a shake or two if you have games at home.

Let us know if you have any questions. Have fun, we'll see you next week.
Eric & Vivek

Alumni Help II

Hello Everybody,

My name is Priya and you are about to learn one of the only onsets tricks in the book…
REDUCED CHARTS!!!! These chart things are quite useful to figure out which goals are a Challenge Never or not, and are just generally very useful. So here, we go…

The 1st requirement for a reduced chart is that in resources, one color isn’t rolled. For example, you are the goal setter, you rolled the cubes, and you didn’t roll any greens. You can now make a reduced chart.
If we keep going with our previous example, your chart should look like this:




As you can see, our chart does not have green on it but, instead yellow or not yellow. It’s really that simple, but it’s a huge time saver.
This is how I got four sixes at States, no joke. It’s that simple, seriously. Yeah, that’s Onsets for you!

Snow Day!!!

Due to the snow day toady, there will be no Academic Games practice this afternoon. On-Sets worksheets that were due today can be turned in after the winter break. Additionally, I will post the Elementary and Middle Ling packets here over the weekend. Those will be due in mid to late January.

To tide you over, a round worth of propaganda examples from section A. Leave your answers in the comments. i will post the suggested answers there before the end of the weekend.

I hope everyone has an enjoyable and peaceful winter break, and we will see you in the new year.

1) I don't know whether that statement is "prejudice" or "tabloid Thinking," so I'll pass on this one.

2)Assistant Football Coach: "I would like to show you some new plays I came up with"
Head Football Coach: "I'm not interested in new plays. we haven't changed a play in ten years, and we've done ok."

3)Tin Man: "But suppose the Wizard doesn't give me a heart?"
Dorthy: "Oh, but he must; we've come so far."

4)Mrs. Pratt knows she was rationalizing. Before we criticize Mrs. Pratt, we should ask ourselves if maybe we rationalize sometimes too.

5)The rioting by Catholics in Northern Ireland is a direct result of the government allowing Protestants to march through the Catholic neighborhood.

6)Superintendent Mollie Pitchford: "I am not going to appoint Ronald Brown as principal of Adams High School. All these men think of is sports, and they pamper the coaches.

7)We have already sent 150,000 troops to Iraq. We have committed ourselves. If things worsen, we will have to send more.

8)So what if I didn't pay taxes on my second job? My employer didn't declare me as an employee of his firm.

9)Buying a house in Beverly Hills is easy. All you need is a lawyer, a real estate agent, and a winning lottery ticket.

On-Sets Challenge Match

In a challenge match, the students work with their Friday tournament teams for the first half of practice. In second half, all of the students, except the captains, are matched up into games against students from the other teams. The captains are allowed to float around from game to game and help their teammates. At the end of the night, the team with the highest average over all its players wins the match, and every player on that team receives a 6.
Tonight was our On-Sets Challenge Match, and the match was very, very close, with all four teams finishing within a quarter point of average. In other words, if any one of the 22 matches had gone the other way, the order of the teams might have completely flipped around.

The averages were as follows:
Get Smart 4.27
No Names 4.13
Next Prime Suspects 4.05
The Smurfs 4

Each member of Get Smart who was present received a six added to their Friday tournament score. Members of the No Names all got 4 points, Next Prime Suspects and Smurfs got 3 points.

On-Sets Friday & EQ Worksheets

Our first On-Sets Friday Tournament saw the Next Prime Suspects with a dominating performance, averaging almost 5 points per player.

Next Prime Suspects: 83 points, 4.83 average
No Names: 78 points, 4.33 average
The Smurfs: 77 points, 3.85 average
Get Smart: 54 points, 3.38 average

Overall Standings:
Get Smart: 430 points, 26.09 average
Next Prime Suspects: 397 points, 25.19 average
No Names: 387 points, 24.66 average
The Smurfs: 350 points, 24.13 average

Top Individuals:
Wendy 31 points
Topher 30
Renee 30
Valerie 30
Brenna 30
Michael 29
Amol 28
Chelsea 28

We also passed out the Elementary EQ packets to the 6th graders. 7th and 8th graders will get theirs on Monday. Worksheets are due before Thanksgiving break. For every page completed, students will get one point added to their Friday tournament score, regardless of the number of problems they get correct. The idea is to reward effort. Students are encourage to bring their worksheet packet with them to all practices, as we will often have times when they can work on them with other students.