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• Science Fair Project Guide

Project Summary

Difficulty	5
Time required	Average (about one week)
Material Availability	Readily available
Cost	Very Low (under $20)
Safety	No issues

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Sponsor

Sponsored by a generous grant from Motorola

Objective

The purpose of this project is to test the probabilities of rolling certain combinations of dice in roll-playing games. Are you more likely to roll a sum of at least 18 with 3 ten-sided dice or 5 six-sided dice?

Terms, Concepts and Questions to Start Background Research

In order to properly do this experiment, you will need to understand the basics of probability theory.

Bibliography

There are many sites on the internet that explain basic probability theory. This site takes you step by step throught the basics that you will need to understand in order to estimate the likelihood of getting a certain outcome on the dice:
http://library.thinkquest.org/11506/learn.html

This site specifically talks about applying probability theory to rolling dice:
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56498.html

Materials and Equipment

• 3 ten-sided dice
• 5 six-sided dice

Experimental Procedure

Procedures:

• Roll each combination of dice 100 times.
• Record the results of each roll.
• Determine the probability of getting a sum higher than 18 for each combination of dice when rolling each combination 100 times.
• Which combination has a higher probability and was this true when you rolled them?

Variations

Test the probabilities of getting 21 using a deck of cards.

• For more science project ideas in this area of science, see Pure Mathematics Project Ideas.

Last edit date: 2005-08-31 14:59:52