Time flies so fast that we are already on the first day of week two for this Math and the Mouse trip! On the math side of things, we learned about Markov chains, Monte Carlo simulations and began our work on project two. As for the mouse, we got early annual pass access to a newly themed ride. So, fasten your seatbelts and follow us as we transition back and forth between class and Hollywood Studios!
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| Rock with us! When we walked into class at 9:00 this morning, we were surprised with green MatM pins from the professors! Once everyone got one, we began class with a lesson from Dr. Harris about Markov chains. With a realistic example using playing cards, it is really interesting to see the difference between deterministic and stochastic problems in math. He then created a decision tree showing the probabilities of certain outcomes with playing cards. Using this information, we discovered that if we ran the same simulation with playing cards over and over again, the probability of ending in a certain state converged to a certain probability. Following up with that, Dr. Hutson showed us a real-world application of Markov chains, which are queues at Disney! Imagine you are at Disney World; have you ever wondered how the cast members estimate the posted waiting time? Behind that number is a complex mathematical model using Markov chains with several different variables that affect the wait time. |
After nearly two hours of learning new material, we got on the vans and headed to Hollywood Studios. After being closed for two years, today was the very first day that annual passholders got early access to ride the newly-branded Rock n Rollercoaster starring the Muppets! It is the only roller coaster that goes upside-down at Disney World, which was really thrilling and well worth the trip to Hollywood Studios.
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| Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, starring Math and the Mouse |
Shifting gears back to the classroom, we all got on the vans, drove back to the hotel, and got a 30-minute break before having the second class of the day. At 1:15, Dr. Bouzarth introduced us to the Monte Carlo simulation, revisiting our first project, the Mickey Bar mobile stand, as an example. To forecast the profit from the Mickey Bar stands, we had to take several variables into account, such as labor costs, material costs, demand, and the fixed cost, which changes with every Mickey Bar produced and sold. It would be much easier to predict the cart’s total profit if these variables were constant with every Mickey Bar sold. However, in the real world (including at Disney), this is not the case, as these variables change greatly with every Mickey Bar sold from the stands. From there, Dr. Bouzarth showed us how to construct a mathematical model in Excel, demonstrating the relationship between the input variables (material cost, labor cost, etc.) and the output profit. These are the kinds of models that some of the class will create in Project 2B. Then, we got to visualize the data by creating bar graphs in Tableau. To get more accustomed to what we have been learning for the past two days, we split into our Project 2A and 2B groups to brainstorm how we are going to apply our new knowledge to build several models for our upcoming presentation.
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| Mara, Tram, Aidan, and Annmarie's group |
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| Della, Luke, and Cassie's group |
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| Harrison, Julia, Ashton, and Dylan's group |
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| Connor, The Anh, and Isabella's group |
Transitioning one more time between the math and the mouse, we departed the hotel at 3:45 for Hollywood Studios after several hard-working hours. We had Lightning Lane passes to the first ride of the afternoon, Toy Story Mania, which we all rode a few days prior. It was much more competitive between our group since most people knew about the tricks and secrets to score higher. After Toy Story Mania, we rode Slinky Dog Dash and Tower of Terror (again). Since we had all ridden it several times at this point, we decided to all make straight, emotionless faces for the picture on the Tower of Terror. We think it came out great!
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| 1..2..3 Drop time!! Next, we made our way to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which was our last ride as a group before we broke off into smaller groups. Every group had dinner right after the Runaway Railway; then, one big group went off to explore Galaxy’s Edge while the other group went back to Toy Story Land to ride the Alien Swirling Saucers ride. After a couple of hours of exploring the park on our own, the groups met back up at the entrance of the park at closing time. From there, most of us made a run to Target to get some groceries while the rest of the group went straight back to the hotel to catch up on some much-needed sleep. |
We are super excited for yet another action-packed day tomorrow! A group of us will be rope-dropping Hollywood Studios to check out the newly-themed Smuggler’s Run ride, temporarily themed for the new Mandalorian movie releasing tomorrow! Additionally, we will have some more time to work on our projects, as well as an outing to Animal Kingdom in the afternoon. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog to see how our day goes!
For those who made it to the end, thanks so much for following along on our journey today!
Today's blog is brought to you by Tram Le and Aidan Barnard!
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