BINGO Inspired Projects

My son’s school, he’s principal of an elementary school, had a Bingo themed fundraiser yesterday. I can’t help but think about how things are done with any event like this. My first thought was about the Bingo cards themselves.

Typical Bingo cards consists of a five by five grid. The letters B I N G O label the columns and each column has a random number. The center square of the grid is a “free” square and doesn’t have a number. Obviously, generating Bingo grids is a logical project. The numbers in each column must be without a specific range and duplicates are not permitted.

The next obvious project is one to “call” the numbers. The numbers must be identified by number and column where the column is identified by the letter above the column. Drawing duplicate numbers is not permitted so keeping track of numbers drown is important. Keeping track of numbers drawn is also important for verifying Bingos. A program should have a way to do that . This becomes a user interface problem as well as a data storage problem. That may be the most interesting part of the project. At least it is for me.

Now if you really wanted to get complicated, one could design a system where Bingo cards are numbered and their contents stored. One might then be able to use that data with the data of numbers drawn to verify if a Bingo was on the card using only the number of the card. I see this as a group project where individual students would write parts of the program and have them work together. A lot of planning would have to go into this of course.

The Bingo at my son’s school used a traditional ball cag. That seems more fun somehow than drawing the numbers on a computer. That doesn’t mean that software would be a bad way to keep track of numbers drawn and used to verify a Bingo. Another project idea perhaps?

On the other hand, the whole idea opens a discussion of “just because something and be computerized does that mean is should be?” The human factor is an important one. I’d love to have student discuss the pros and cons of computerized Bingo and old fashioned ball cages and physical tracking of drawn balls. Which is more authentic? What does authentic even mean?  That discussion might be just as useful as discussion of what data structures should be used to track Bingo numbers.