Day 10: A Day of Rides and Relaxation

Greetings lovely people and welcome back to the 2024 Math and The Mouse Blog site. As you all should know by now, because y'all have been consistently tuning into our daily blog posts (thanks btw), we are Tyler and Will. Today, we will be taking you down a leisure journey of projects and amusement parks. 

Our day began with an early departure from our hotel at 7:45am for rope-drop in Epcot to reach Remy's Ratatouille Adventure with the shortest wait-time. Thus far, we have been endeavoring to optimize variables, such as time and population density, to more efficiently get to attractions and wait the smallest duration of time. To access this attraction located in Epcot, we rode a gondola - aka sky liner - for the first time. Tyler has never ridden a gondola before, so he was very thrilled to be sharing this experience with his peers. From there, we visited Remy's Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After, in the piercing cold of rain. 

Later, we broke up into individual groups to explore other aspects of Epcot, depending on interests: the Nemo, Non-baguette group and the Nemo, baguette group. We all desired to see the Nemo attraction but had varying opinions regarding how urgent it was that we acquire food. If you know me, Tyler Pearson, you know that I like to eat. Thus, I was part of the Nemo, Baguette group because I was hungry; however, we inadvertently did not manage to see the Nemo attraction. We spent an hour and 30 minutes in this French restaurant, not merely because we were hungry but because we were short on time, and the weather was damp and pouring outside.

After Epcot, we broke off for lunch and reconvened for class in the early afternoon. We talked about optimizing the number of seats on a ride when random numbers of parties show up. We took the cart of Tower of Terror (which holds 21 people) and tried to find the best way to fit parties on the cart while leaving the least number of empty seats. Thanks to an amazing game made by Dr. Bouzarth's father, we were able to see how we would do it if we were in the shoes of the Disney employee working at the Tower of Terror. After our brains were enriched by the wealth of knowledge that belongs to our three glorious leaders, we ended class and moved to our next activity.

Later into the day, we did a brainstorming session for project three, where we came up with our own projects. Lots of groups threw out many ideas as possible questions that could be tested within the bounds of our capabilities. The professors will take our ideas and give us projects to work on next week. After our brainstorming session, we all split up into our groups to get some work done on project two. Various groups worked in different environments - such as by the hot pool, or in the cool lobby of the hotel. After two or three hours of hard work with Excel spreadsheets, Tableau, and PowerPoint, we split up into different groups for the nightly activities: most of the group went to enjoy some delicious Five Guys followed by more work on the group projects, whilst the others who felt comfortable enough in their work ventured to Hollywood Studios for night to get some thrills in.

Hi everyone, Will here to tell you about my experience in Hollywood Studios. After some great work done by my incredible team - Sam Pearson, Savannah Bailey and I - the three of us decided to go enjoy ourselves in the park for the night. We started our night singing along to the songs of one of the most iconic Disney movies: Frozen. Dr. Hutson was not a fan, so he ran away from us. We loved singing so much that we went to the Frozen Sing Along to sing our hearts out… and boy did we sing our hearts out. We gladly sang louder than all the kids, as the attraction poured bubbles on us! After the sing along, we decided to ride Tower of Terror, and after an hour-long wait filled with many line games, we had an incredible ride and some great group bonding moments. Towards the end of our day, we dashed over to Toy Story Mania to meet the professors for one last ride. We all tried our hardest to beat Dr. Hutson, but he remains undefeated in the game. We ended the day singing Disney songs the whole way home. This was a great way for all of us to relax after long hours of group projects and presentations, and I love getting closer to all the amazing people here.

Again, it's been Tyler and Will, telling the tales of our stupendous adventures in the wilderness of Epcot and Hollywood Studios. Thanks for tuning in!

Sincerely, 

Tyler and Will