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Saturday, May 18, 2024

Day 11: Making the Magic

    


    Hello everyone and welcome back to our Math and the Mouse blog! Writing to you is Morgan and Tori, where we are tired from a long and sweltering day but filled with lots of memories and excitement. Today was a packed-filled day with early morning tours, tasty treats, fun-filled rides, and exciting class time. We had such a fun and magical day and are so ready to tell you all about it! 

    Once we arrived at the Magic Kingdom, we scanned into the park and met our Keys to the Kingdom guide Priscilla for our private group tour. For the next three hours, we were able to learn a lot about what it takes to operate a theme park along with the history and creation of Disney World itself. One of the coolest details any park guest can witness is right along Main Street USA in the various shop windows. If you happen to look up to the second floor of these shops you will see a bunch of names that represent influential figures such as both Walt and Roy Disney and other Imagineers. In the blink of an eye, we transitioned to the tunnels underneath the castle to learn more about the history of how the Magic Kingdom came into existence. When we were down with the history, we emerged in Fantasyland where we learned all about how each area in the Magic Kingdom is set up. For example, if you are in Adventureland, it does not make sense for you to see the castle, so the buildings are set up to hide that. After this, we went backstage again to see the process of how to run a parade. We got to see all the floats and some friends of different characters. Finally, we got to see the back of some of the rides in Adventureland before returning to Mainstreet to end the tour.  



    We were all hot and tired when we finished the Keys to the Kingdom tour and needed to lift our spirits. So, we headed towards Adventureland for a quick treat, of spring rolls and dole whips, and some air conditioning, in the Enchanted Tiki Room. This was our first time in the Enchanted Tiki Room as a full group, and it was also most people’s first time as well, it was fun getting to listen to all the birds and plants sing to us. Once we got our dose of singing birds and air conditioning, our boarding group number from the Tron virtual queue was called so we hopped to get in line. Once we boarded the ride, we raced against teams red, orange, and yellow to the end, where we won the race! As it was our second time riding this trip, we all still agreed that it was a fun and amazing ride.





After we returned from Magic Kingdom it was time to hit the books to learn about Markov Chains. This math concept is used to model things such as queues or search results for engines like Google. To model this, you can draw a circle with the likelihood you will stay where you are, draw an arrow forward with the likelihood you will move a space up, or draw an arrow backward with the likelihood you will move a space back. To connect more areas together, draw another circle and repeat the process. With the lesson concluding we jumped back into our second group projects mixed with upcoming presentations to either Disney professionals or the Furman Alumni Network.


    While today was very busy, it was packed with many interesting knowledge and activities. We are learning so much during our time here and having fun while we do it! We are about halfway through our trip and are so excited for what is to come and the many more memories we are going to make along the way! We have many more fun activities planned in the upcoming days, so continue to follow along with our blog post! Good night and goodbye for now!! 


See Y'all Later, 

Tori and Morgan

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