Day 16: Parks with the President

Hello everyone! This is Hayes and Sam, and we will be your guides to today’s adventures! Today we were in the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, with a midday break for lunch and class. We can’t wait to tell you all about it!

We started the day in the Magic Kingdom. For the past few days, we have been collecting data throughout the parks, and today was no exception. Hayes’s group is studying party size distributions, so he was stationed at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to count party sizes as they entered the ride. He, Jack, and Tyler got permission from a manager to stand near the exit and collect data, but had to leave once the ride got busy. With their vantage point taken away, they resorted to going through the line and counting party sizes as they got onto the ride. After a few hours of riding, they had enough data to help the project. Sam’s group is collecting data on Tower of Terror, which is in Hollywood Studios, so they helped other groups collect data in the Magic Kingdom. Sam helped the group studying omni-mover rides collect information regarding wait times at Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. She went through the ride with Alyssa and counted their wait time to compare it with the posted wait time. We have been comparing our actual wait times to the posted wait times throughout the trip, but one group will be taking a special look at how well these statistics match up for rides that are on a conveyor belt. We are excited to see their findings! Sam and Alyssa continued collecting data about the rides' wait time for the rest of the morning in Magic Kingdom.

We returned to the hotel for lunch before the weather got too hot. It is summer in Florida; standing in the sun is not fun when it is over 90 degrees. We were very glad to spend the worst of the weather indoors. We were given about an hour to rest, eat, and prepare for class. Hayes spent the time playing Sabacc with Will, Erin, Hannah, and Riley. Sabacc is a Star Wars card game sold at Disney. This is the same game that Han Solo won to get the Millennium Falcon! Our stakes weren’t quite so high, but we had a good time pretending we were playing cards at Mos Eisley. Sam spent the break resting, getting caught up on laundry, and making lunch.

In class today, we learned about statistical distributions. This will be immensely helpful in our research problems. We are researching how our observed data varies from what we expect, and the methods we learned today will tell us whether the differences we observe are likely due to random chance or if there is another force at play. These statistical tests will give us the power to draw conclusions from the data we are collecting!

We also were given a new project, the 4-Park Challenge. For the tenth anniversary of Math and the Mouse, alumni were invited back to participate in a special competition! We will race to ride as many rides as we can, similar to the Traveling Tourist Problem that we competed in earlier in the trip. However, this is an expanded competition. We will be able to go to any park, ride any ride, and view any show for differing point values. These values were derived from the rides average wait time, length, and average down time. Alumni will be competing on their own teams, as well as President and Dr. Davis! The Davis’ will be on the professors’ team. Maybe President Davis will bring the professors luck in this competition. After losing the Traveling Tourist Problem for the fifth time in a row, the professors are looking for redemption. We will be doing our best to make sure that doesn’t happen! We spent the next hour plotting our strategies. We would tell our strategies, but we don’t want to steal tomorrow’s blog’s thunder! Tune in tomorrow to see how we do!

After our planning was done, we headed to Hollywood Studios to collect more data, especially for a project concerning Toy Story Mania. While most projects require counting people for long periods of time, this project involves scoring points and playing games. Sometimes data collection can be fun! We also went on some other rides to collect wait times, party sizes, and other statistics. Meanwhile, Sam’s group watched the ride pictures at the bottom of Tower of Terror to count the empty seats on each ride. They plan on using this data, as well as data they have collected regarding party sizes, to develop an algorithm for seating people on the ride. They hope to make an optimal algorithm to seat people more efficiently than Disney.

We finished the day by riding the Tower of Terror with President Davis! We made sure to pose for the picture with our distinguished guest. It was so fun we rode it a second time! We are so glad we got to share our Disney experience with the Davis's today, and we are so glad we got to share it with you through this blog! 

Peace out!

Hayes Brown and Sam Pearson