(CSC165)_Sep 28_Folding Problem

Friday's class was indeed a surprise to me. We actually had an problem solving exercise with a Folding problem. I grouped with a classmate to try to solve the problem together. After we carefully went through and understood the problem, we first wrote down a brief plan, which included steps such as experiments, recording results, finding pattern, making predictions, comparing predictions with actual results and so on. I really think the plan helped us a lot during the problem solving process.

In my previous experience, when trying to solve a relatively complex problem, after figuring out the question, I normally immediately start thinking. However, because there might be many factors that I can start with, it often takes me an unnecessarily long time to start the whole process. In comparison, during the class, in addition to the instruction, which specifically requires a plan, a time limit and pressure from the teamwork encouraged us prepare the plan right after understanding the problem. This turned out to be very helpful for us to organize our thoughts much more efficiently.

We found the pattern and did several successfully prediction, but when we were trying to figure out a mathematic function to show the result with n times of folding, we couldn't do it. Writing this blog is actually a way to look back and I think it worth a try to do it with some programming rather than purely math.