Background for playing "Geiger."

Story: a speck of extremely dangerous radioactive material (the "source") has been lost somewhere in the middle of a large, featureless room. You have a device, a detector/collector, that you can use to measure the strength of the radiation and, if it's positioned correctly over the speck, collect it for safe disposal.

But it's a tiny speck, so it you have to give it quite precise coordinates. By taking measurements, you can figure out where the speck is.

Unfortunately, as you take measurements, you're also accumulating radiation exposure. If you get too much, you can't continue (and lose the game).

To Play

Position your device (it shows up as a diamond in the otherwise featureless field) by clicking or by typing values into the coordinate boxes.

Click the measure/collect button. When you do so,

• If you are close enough to the source, you collect it and win.
• Otherwise, you learn the strength of the radiation there (in counts) and accumulate exposure ("Dose").

CODAP records the x and y coordinates of your measurements as well as the counts.

Use data to help you figure out where the speck is.

Levels and Parameters

We can imagine different levels of the game getting harder as we adjust parameters. These include the intrinsic strength of the source, your maximum dose, and the "radius" of the collector.

As of 8 October 2015, the dosage limit is 20,000 units (way more than you need!) and the collector radius is 2 units.

Questions and Issues

• As you play, think about the strategy you are using. How do you like it? What other strategies can you imagine? Do any of them relate to data science?

• There are conflicting considerations in the play of the game. I (Tim) am usually inclined to let students flounder around and figure them out themselves; in a class, as a teacher, I would stop after a few minutes and let students describe them. Is that a good plan? Or would it be better to lay some of the tensions out ahead of time? (e.g., do we tell them up front that the closer you are to the source, the more radiation exposure you get—or do we let them discover it themselves, possibly at the cost of losing some games?)

• What isotope is it? Can we connect this scenario to actual materials? Can a microscopic speck be that dangerous? What are the units of radiation exposure, and what do they really mean?

• In fact, the speck is somewhere in the square [(25, 25), (75, 75)]. Should that be a different color?

• Should we see "ghosts" of past measurement locations in the game, or should we rely on the users to make the relevant graph?

• Should the player have to specify that they're "going for it" and trying to collect the source?
  Pro: in real life, they would probably have to use a different device, and think about it differently.
  Con: that requires more widgetry and explanation. Current version is parsimonious :)

• Do you want a grid on the screen? Live, updating coordinates as you move your mouse?

• We're using abstract coordinates that go up to 100 in each direction. Should we make a reasonably-size laboratory room (say 10 m by 10 m) and use actual units?