Gas Station Problem and Unit Rates

I was at Hy-Vee the other day filling up using our fuel save points when an interesting question popped into my head.  I was thinking if you were a gas station attendant how could you know if a person was using a fuel saver and which pump had the highest fuel saver discount based on the number of gallons and fuel price.

I made this activity to engage student thinking about Unit Rates and instead of fuel saver points they have to find which pumps are losing them money.

So I creepily took down the notes of every pump at the local Hy-Vee gas station, luckily enough I did the math on them all and had some surprising results.

The assignment is here: https://goo.gl/BYaiSn

It focuses on higher thinking about unit rates than we might typically cover.

After students complete this part of the task they have follow up questions:

1. Which pumps need to be fixed?
2. How much money was lost if we make $.10 on each gallon sold? Show your work.
3. How much money did we make?
4. How did you find your answers? (Write one paragraph)

Clash Royale and Unit Rates

First of all, what is Clash Royale?

"Clash Royale is a fast paced, card based PvP brawler.  Collect Clash troops, and use them to wreak havoc on your opponents tower." (ClashRoyale.com)  At our school Clash of Clans has gave way to the new Clash Royale game of choice.

During the game you have battle decks or characters that you play to defeat your opponent friend or stranger.  The goal of the game is to get your characters to take defeat your enemies and take your enemies towers.   So to do that easier is to create a really well put together battle deck.

As a class we would discuss what some students do to build a really well put together battle deck.

Student examples may include: damage, elixir, and different types of cards.

We would further discuss that a combination would be the best way to go, but we are going to put together a battle deck based on damage.  But, further more we are going to put together the best battle deck based on damage per second.  The more damage you are dealing per second the higher chance you are to claim the enemy tower faster.

Here students can download the app and see what to play or they can look online at all the different characters and use their knowledge of unit rates to put together the best deck.  Here are some example characters.

Here is a list of characters and damage and hit speed.

Character          Damage             Hit Speed (in seconds)

Knight                  75                         1.1

Archer                  40                          1.2

Bomber               100                        1.9

Giant                   126                         1.5

Musketeer           100                         1.1

Baby Dragon       100                         1.8

Mini PEKKA      325                       1.8

Witch                   38                         0.7

Skeleton Army    30                           1

Prince                  220                      1.5

Goblins               50                          1.1

Goblin Spears      24                        1.3

Valkyrie               120                       1.5

Minion                40                           1

Skeletons             30                          1

Balloon              600                         3

Giant Skeleton   100                        1.5

Barbarians           75                        1.5

PEKKA              450                        1.8

Minion Horde     40                          1

Hog Rider           160                        1.5

There are other characters they can research, but the work that students will do will be to:

1. Calculate the damage per second of each character.
2. Develop their top 8 characters to go in their battle deck.
3. Develop a written reasoning of why you selected those characters to be in your battle deck
4.  EC. Try it out, did you win? Did you lose? Write a paragraph on why you won or lost?

I want to engage the students next year.  I know that quite a few of my students play this game and I think this is a great one day project to get students thinking and evaluating data to influence decisions they make.