That is very like what my kids came up with as a group.
We had already talked about something our old textbook called the guessing game algorithm, and
That algorithm is a lot like binary search.
So they hypothesized that it would be efficient to divide the coins into groups, and
They knew that it wouldn't be useful to divide the coins into two groups because
The still wouldn't know which pile contained the counterfeit and
They wanted something like a control, and
Having the control changed the way they searched after the first few iterations.
Anyway, it's worth noting that though the honors class came up with the naming system quickly and
They were able to predict some of the sticky places,
The other ninth grade class did very well at working together to solve this problem.
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