Unplugged: Keeping score

The objective of this activity is to experience creating and working with variables by pairing up and playing Rock Paper Scissors.

Find someone to play Rock, Paper, Scissors with you. On a separate sheet of paper, keep track of how many times each player wins as well as the number of times you end up in a tie.

Play: Play Rock Paper Scissors for a few minutes. When done, add up your scores and how many ‘rounds’ you played.

Take a look at how you kept track of your player scores. Usually, scorekeepers will write down the players’ names and then beside or below the names, marks representing the ‘wins’ of each player. You may have made a separate place for recording ties.

Sample score-keeping sheet

Now think about what parts of the score sheet represent constants: values that do not change through the course of a gaming session.

Example: The players’ names are constants.

Consider what parts of the score sheet represent variables: values that do change through the course of a gaming session.

Example: The players’ number of wins are variables.