Day 8: Len Testa and Disney Springs

Hello everyone! This is Hayes and Alyssa, and we will be your guides to today’s adventures! Today, we explored Epcot, met the creator of Touring Plans, and worked on the projects we received yesterday. We can’t wait to tell you all about it!

It started off as a dark and stormy morning. The rain pounded the windows of our hotel during breakfast, but our reverse rain dances and prayerful chants drove off the storm by the time we reached the park. A few remaining clouds sprinkled our heads, but the day miraculously turned beautiful by the time we had ridden our first ride. 

The first ride we hit was Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the most popular rides in the park. Typically, you can’t get onto this ride through a regular line, but the professors woke up early to secure us a spot in the virtual queue! We are very grateful for the work they put in, even in the wee hours of the morning. We were able to ride after a short wait. We spun and speeded around the track while bopping along to the tune of “Conga” by the Miami Sound Machine. The ride chooses a different ‘80s song to play every time. We quite enjoyed this iteration’s song selection.

After our initial park adventure, we met with Len Testa, president of Touring Plans. Touring Plans is a company that helps customers optimize their vacations. Users tell Touring Plans which rides they want to go on, and Touring Plans gives an order to go on the rides that minimizes wait times. Touring Plans also solves other Disney-related problems, such as which ticket packages will minimize cost. Mr. Testa has been involved in solving problems in a variety of fields, from healthcare to credit cards, and shared a plethora of stories about his time as a math professional. It was amazing to hear the variety of problems Mr. Testa is able to solve using the same branches of mathematics that we are currently learning. Hayes did research last summer that involved Touring Plans and was a bit starstruck by Mr. Testa. After Hayes had worked with Touring Plans data every day for three months, Mr. Testa seemed like a mathematical rock star. He made sure to get a picture. After we heard from Mr. Testa, the group had some free time in the park.

At this point, the group split up, so I (Hayes) will fill you in on my experiences before handing it over to Alyssa. I ate a quick packed lunch with Will, Erin, and Katie while we watched the ducks and squirrels attempt to snatch fries from unsuspecting guests. The wildlife has no fear; a squirrel came right up to Katie’s foot, stood on its hind legs begging for food, and only skittered off when Katie emphatically shooed it off. But the squirrel would not be deterred. We later saw it dash back to its treetop home with a full fry in its mouth! We only had about an hour of free time after we ate, and we decided to spend it on Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in honor of the rodent friend who entertained us during lunch. The ride was extremely impressive. The amount of effect Disney can achieve using slight motion, wind, and 3D glasses is staggering. It felt like we were whooshing through a crowded kitchen, Remy at our side, when in reality we were almost stationary. We disembarked with smiles on our faces before hustling over to the established meeting point. Now, on to Alyssa’s adventures!

Alyssa here! I wandered off to explore the globe with Jack and Tyler. We were on a mission to find food since we had forgotten to pack lunch for the day. We first stopped in China to grab some vegetable dumplings and chicken skewers. Both were quite good but felt more like a quick snack than the meal we had hoped for, so our journey continued to Mexico where we ate some tacos. My favorite part of Epcot has to be the details they put into traveling through the world locations. I am always impressed by the work Disney has done to make it feel as close to the real location as possible! We then headed back toward Morocco when we ran into Morgan and Jacob. They had visited France and Morgan was able to buy a baguette for a relatively low cost. They joined our group and we headed back to Mexico to ride a small indoor boat ride called Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros. It was a nice cool break from the humidity outside. We got off the ride and headed straight to Morocco where we ran into more of our group members in the shops nearby. 

We met back up with the whole group around 2:00 in Morocco. Thanks to our annual passes, we had access to the annual passholder lounge and this is where we explored building linear optimization models. As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we practiced setting up one version of these problems when working with scarce resources, but these kinds of problems come in all shapes and sizes. One of the problems we explored today looked at how to allocate workdays to employees, where they were required to work five days in a row before taking a two-day break. The goal of this problem was to minimize the total number of full-time employees hired by the company. Another problem we looked at included meeting diet requirements when limited to four food groups: brownies, chocolate ice cream, soda, and strawberry cheesecake. For this project, we needed to minimize the total cost of the diet while meeting constraints for calories, chocolate, sugar, and fat. We also looked at a knapsack problem, where we were limited by space available on a cassette tape, and an assignment/location problem, where we wanted to keep the streets of Disney safe while using as few officers as needed. These were just some examples of the problems we looked at this afternoon.

 

After we explored the world of setting up linear models, our group traveled to Disney Springs. Our first stop was Everglazed Donuts where we were generously treated to yummy deluxe donuts. Once everyone finished their treat, we split off into groups and took some time to purchase fun souvenirs. Hayes visited the Lego store where he gawked at the stupefying price tags, as well as a soap shop that shocked even his limited sense of smell. Hayes’s nose is notoriously weak, but the aromas from that store were strong enough to reach his scent receptors. Alyssa went to several shop locations to find fun Disney ears. Once the ears were acquired, she also purchased a Winnie the Pooh t-shirt and a personalized Lego minifigure. After all the shopping fun was complete, the group met up at 6:30 to leave Disney Springs and headed back to the hotel.

 

The group was tired when we returned. Hayes counted three people who fell dead asleep on the van ride back to the hotel. When we got back to the hotel, the professors granted us a few hours of downtime while they hosted office hours. Hayes took the opportunity to do laundry, eat, and bring some order to his life after the chaotic hustle and bustle of Math and the Mouse. Then, like most students, he met with his project group to begin work on a linear programming model. We traveled ten hours in a crowded van to do math problems. Silly things like sleep deprivation won’t stop us from working on our projects. After getting a good start on their work, groups started to filter out of the lobby and head to bed. It had been a busy day, full of excitement and problem-solving. We are so glad we got to share it with you! We can’t wait to tell you about tomorrow’s adventure!