STEM 140: Reason and Abstraction: Math of Games and Puzzles
Spring 2025
Games@Night: Monday 7:30-8:30 PM in Library 140
Spring 2025 Office Hours: Monday 2:30–3:30 PM, Tuesday 3:30–4:20 PM, Friday 3–4 PM
T$\epsilon$a: Mondays at 4 PM in the $\epsilon$ Neighborhood (Library 1st floor)
Reading Responses
Before the celebration of Learning on Fridays, you will turn in your answers to the assigned questions (below) from the chapters we discussed that day annotated with any added thoughts inspired by our class discussion in a different color. Your answers should be complete and incorporate your personal experiences and thoughts. They must be your own college-level writing following appropriate grammar and punctuation guidelines. These responses will be graded as E (excellent), M (meets expectations), or N (does not meet expectations).
Problem Sets
Other than Problem Set 0, problem sets are due at the beginning of class.
Wednesday, January 22 by 4 PM
Problem Set 0: Come see me in my office (Library 131) or the Epsilon Neighborhood right outside my office, hand me a piece of paper with your name written on it, tell me (verbally) what picture you saw at the top of this webpage when you read the homework assignment, answer my question, and ask me a question of your own. Also hand Josie a piece of paper with your name on it, either at Math@Night or before or after class. I encourage you to complete this assignment as early as possible!
Wednesday, January 22 at 10 AM
Problem Set 1
Wednesday, January 29
Problem Set 2
Wednesday, February 5
Problem Set 3
Wednesday, February 12
Problem Set 4
Wednesday, February 19
Problem Set 5
Friday, February 28
Problem Set 6
Celebrations of Learning
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Friday, January 17
Celebration of Learning 1: logic puzzles
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Friday, January 24
Celebration of Learning 2: tic tac toe: I'll give you a partially played game of tic tac toe and ask you what the options are, up to symmetry, for the next move and/or what moves the next player will want to make and why. See Problem Set 2 for examples of this kind of question.
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Friday, January 31
Celebration of Learning 3: infinite tic tac toe: explain how to play, analyze partially played games, describe strategies.
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Friday, February 7
Celebration of Learning 4: integer tic tac toe: explain how to play, analyze partially played games, describe strategies.
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Friday, February 14
Celebration of Learning 5: countdown: winning strategies.
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Friday, February 21
Celebration of Learning 6: Chomp: explain who has a winning strategy and what that winning strategy is on a square bar in Chomp; given a partially-chomped bar, determine if the next player has a winning strategy and describe that winning strategy.