BC’s Math Club Presents Research Projects

Amy Sarmiento, Reporter

Students in BC’s Math Club presented their research projects in the Fine Arts building on May 3. The event was organized by Math professor Jonathon Brown.

Each student had the podium for 10 minutes to present using a PowerPoint, and a couple of minutes for a Q&A following their speech.

One of the research presentations was done by BC students Jesus Medina and Jonathon Martinez who researched the app Pokemon Go. They talked about who is the best character to play with during specific weather conditions.

“Our goal was to determine the best character under certain weather conditions. We did our research on game mechanics, weather, and base stats. We got the variables of the game that leads us to our big calculations,” said Medina.

The students described how each character differs from one another and why it’s better to use certain ones during specific circumstances and aligned with the weather.

“When we were doing our calculations, we were assuming we were battling with the strongest Pokemon because we wanted it to be at the maximum value,” said Medina.

Medina said the importance of weather in the game affects the Pokemon because rain gives water Pokémon will get a stat boost and causes fire Pokémon are weakened.

The students presented some of the formulas and variables they used to get their calculations. They listed their results for the weather model. The top five for the sunny, cloudy, rainy, and foggy weather, sorted by highest damage per second.

Another BC student did his research project on the infinity paradox. He started with an introduction to the idea of an infinite number scale by describing the definitions of whole numbers, integers, and rational numbers.

He went on to ask the audience a riddle about an infinite hotel in which every room is taken and there is no vacancy for one more person to take a room, but there is one more guest who needs a room. If the infinite hotel is completely filled with an infinite number of guests, how can the manager secure a room for one more person? One audience member gave the correct answer at first try. The short answer is that each hotel guest would have to move one room over, considering that they’d willing to, which would leave room number one available. Each guest would essentially move over to next room forever, but everyone would fit in the hotel.

There was a reception at the end with pizza and champagne cake for the presenters and audience members.