Hello, everyone! Caroline and Johanna here to take you through our 7th day at Disney. Well recovered from our borderline traumatic day at Magic Kingdom, we began the day with a great lesson on graph theory and then visited Epcot for the second time.
Pick the Right Path
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| Courtney mapping out a path for the class |
Today, we built upon our earlier work with network models to create shortest path models. Basically, we wanted to find the best path to get around a certain number of vertices based on different constraints. One constraint could have us not trying to hit every vertex, but every edge. Another could have us trying to hit every vertex only once and end up at our starting vertex. Finally, the professors introduced a problem where certain vertices and pathways had certain values, where the goal was to find the non-repeating path with the lowest total value. The vertices had different values depending on their order in the sequence, which made the problem simulate walk and wait times in a park. In one example, the vertices had different values depending on whether they were among your first four or last four, which resembled increasing wait times throughout a day at Disney. At the end of the session, Dr. Hutson introduced how the Traveling Salesman Problem, the basis of our Traveling Tourist Problem from yesterday, relies on a lot of the same data we used in our practice problems, and how companies like Touring Plans can make good solutions quickly for their clients.
OR We There Yet?
After class, we continued working on our OR problems. My group (Caroline) has made a lot of progress, and was actually able to start putting the pieces of our constraints together. Because each section of the constraint can be very long, we incorporated some Mouse into our math by naming each different section after a Disney character. Hopefully tomorrow we can begin consolidating our "characters" and have a model ready to present! My group (Johanna) has also made good progress. We are currently working on building generalizations from our constraints that make the strings of different variables we are summing more concise for the sake of both the computer and our classmates. Though we won't have a solution until we use a program like Mosel to calculate the problem, we have built a good bit of our model for Thursday, which is quite exciting!
Takeover Time
So, today, I (Caroline) had the opportunity to take over the Furman Snapchat as part of their showcase of different MayX courses. It was a lot of fun to be able to explain and update our activities in a way that would reach a lot of people. If you would like to see my story, follow furmanu on Snapchat, or look for it on YouTube!
Rain, Rain, Go Away!
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| The crew sporting their fashionable rain gear in Epcot's Germany |
Unfortunately, we had our first spot of bad weather today, but that did not keep us away from the parks. After class and lunch, we set out for Epcot, where we took advantage of the single rider line in Test Track, in what was probably one of the most efficient uses of the single rider line thus far in the trip. We made it on the ride in less than 5 minutes, just before inclement weather halted it indefinitely. From there, some of the group decided to test ourselves and our stomachs at Mission Space, where we learned that Zack is the last person you want on your space shuttle due to his inability to push buttons at the correct time. After Mission Space, a few of us ended up taking pictures with Baymax from Big Hero 6, who is as adorable as he is squishy, and who gave great hugs. After wandering around Epcot for a while, we all met up at the Land Pavilion to ride Living With the Land. Despite its slow pace, it was really interesting to see how Disney is a prominent facility for ecologically smart farming techniques. The food grown in the Epcot facility is actually used in the park. After the ride, we met with Furman student Haley Cottingham, who is just finishing an internship with Disney. Haley is a computer science major, and her internship actually deals with workforce scheduling, the same issue as our projects. She was able to give us a lot of information about the Disney internship program in general, and told us about all the possible career opportunities available at Disney. When we finished our visit with Haley, we had some time to kill before our dinner reservation, so we tried the ride in the Mexico Pavilion, and almost lost Dr. Harris when he nearly fell out of the boat!
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| We had a great time talking with Haley (third from right, bottom row) about her experiences at Disney |
Did Someone Say Bratwurst?
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Jamie enjoying some
delicious German food |
We ended the day with a delicious dinner at the German restaurant Biergarten. While we waited for the table, we explored the nearby shops, including a toy store and a glass and jewelry shop. When we finally entered the restaurant, we were floored. The restaurant is perfectly decorated and even featured a performance by a German band. Because it's buffet-style, we were able to try a whole spectrum of German foods, and we could get as much as we pleased. Some favorites were the schnitzel, the bratwurst and sauerkraut, red cabbage, and apple strudel. Due to the rain, we decided to opt out on a 2nd viewing of Illuminations, and made our way to the exit. We didn't let the rain dampen our fun, and we splashed and laughed our way to the van, ready to get some rest for another day.
Written by:
Johanna Swab Caroline Trammell
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