mscroggs.co.uk
mscroggs.co.uk

subscribe

Comment

Comments

Comments in green were written by me. Comments in blue were not written by me.
Hello Matthew Scroggs, I was wondering if it would be possible to make a "menace" with the game chopsticks? If you don't know what chopsticks is, then here are the rules listed on Wikipedia
Each player uses both hands to play the game, the number of fingers extended on a hand shows the number of points that the hand has.

Both players start with each hand having one point — one finger extended on each hand.

The goal of the game is for a player to force their opponent to extend all of their fingers and thumbs on both hands or to force the player to extend all their fingers and thumb and one hand if their other hand is already out. The score has to be exactly five. If the resulting number is more than five, the player is not out no matter what. For example, if a hand with 4 points is tapped by a hand with 2 points, the hand with 4 points becomes a hand with 1 point. This rule is called a 'roll over'.

Players take turns to tap their live hand(s) against another live hand (either their own other hand or one of their opponent's).

You can tap any live hand per turn, but only one

The number of points on the tapping hand is added to the number on the tapped hand, and the player with the tapped hand extends their digits to show the new score. The tapping hand remains unchanged.

A player may tap their two hands together to transfer points from one hand to the other. This is called a split. If a player has one hand out (0 fingers) and two fingers, on the other hand, they could split to have one finger on each hand. (This counts as a turn).You are not allowed to "swap hands" or switch the number of fingers between hands without splitting (going from 4 on one hand and 2 on the other to 2 on one hand and 4 on the other).
               
@JT: Yes, you could. You need a matchbox for each possible combination of fingers on the players' hands, an beads in each box for each move that could be made in that position.

When I have some time, I'll have a go a write a javascript version of it...
Matthew
on /blog/19
               
@Matthew: where do you buy your matchboxes at? Because I need 1296 and the best deal I have found is 1300 for $147.57 two packs of 500 for $49.65 each and three packs of 100 for $16.09 each.
               
@JT: correction, the best deal I have found is $120.48
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F6PY9XF/r...
               
@JT: I bought "craft matchboxes" (without the matches inside), but it looks like your bulk normals ones work out cheapers.
Matthew
on /blog/19
               
@Matthew: would it still work with the "roll over" rule? or would that just make it run out?
               
@Matthew: Thank you so much, could you email me a link for it once you make it.
               

Archive

Show me a random blog post
 2025 

Mar 2025

How to write a crossnumber

Jan 2025

Christmas (2024) is over
Friendly squares
 2024 
▼ show ▼
 2023 
▼ show ▼
 2022 
▼ show ▼
 2021 
▼ show ▼
 2020 
▼ show ▼
 2019 
▼ show ▼
 2018 
▼ show ▼
 2017 
▼ show ▼
 2016 
▼ show ▼
 2015 
▼ show ▼
 2014 
▼ show ▼
 2013 
▼ show ▼
 2012 
▼ show ▼

Tags

menace hexapawn turtles datasaurus dozen video games pac-man london stickers errors logs kings approximation programming misleading statistics manchester science festival convergence cambridge gather town error bars reuleaux polygons curvature braiding estimation hats accuracy hyperbolic surfaces stirling numbers javascript dates matrix multiplication live stream standard deviation plastic ratio graph theory golden ratio bubble bobble matt parker advent calendar finite group draughts determinants coins guest posts regular expressions boundary element methods radio 4 wool rugby graphs world cup data visualisation geogebra bots final fantasy golden spiral geometry captain scarlet crosswords royal institution platonic solids friendly squares logic probability matrices go frobel palindromes recursion crochet computational complexity tmip logo realhats sound london underground weather station dinosaurs electromagnetic field game show probability christmas card manchester flexagons the aperiodical exponential growth hannah fry sport binary latex folding paper chebyshev numerical analysis triangles zines oeis gaussian elimination pascal's triangle trigonometry books sorting talking maths in public mathsjam youtube tennis harriss spiral big internet math-off news pi php national lottery finite element method folding tube maps phd map projections football asteroids quadrilaterals matrix of minors raspberry pi countdown games bempp signorini conditions runge's phenomenon wave scattering fence posts newcastle matrix of cofactors fonts cross stitch mean martin gardner propositional calculus chalkdust magazine christmas reddit rhombicuboctahedron squares pizza cutting crossnumbers european cup pythagoras inverse matrices inline code mathsteroids arithmetic edinburgh data databet 24 hour maths interpolation dataset craft fractals puzzles speed sobolev spaces pi approximation day ternary preconditioning chess bodmas statistics weak imposition gerry anderson numbers nine men's morris correlation polynomials light dragon curves noughts and crosses anscombe's quartet python machine learning game of life ucl simultaneous equations crossnumber royal baby a gamut of games mathslogicbot people maths

Archive

Show me a random blog post
▼ show ▼
© Matthew Scroggs 2012–2025