At first glance, Spot It! might seem like just another fast-paced matching game, but there’s some impressive math hiding behind its design. Each card in the original deck shares exactly one symbol with every other card -- a surprisingly difficult feature to pull off! This unique one-match property is no accident; it relies on deep ideas from projective geometry and combinatorial design.
Our project dove into the structure behind Spot It! and asked a big question: can we reverse-engineer the game? Given a desired number of cards and symbols, can we build a working Spot It!-like deck that preserves the one-match rule -- when it’s mathematically possible? We began by analyzing how the full 55-card deck works and studied smaller versions -- like a 7-card, 7-symbol deck -- that follow similar rules. These examples helped us understand the geometry and algebra at play, allowing us to create scaled-down versions of Spot It! that capture the essence of the game on a smaller scale.
Although our main focus was on the math within the game, we also began exploring a more general procedure to design custom decks from scratch. This part of the project is still in progress, but it points toward future work in customizing playable decks using mathematical tools. Along the way, we saw how abstract concepts from geometry can come to life through something as simple (and fun) as a card game. We hope our project helps show that math isn’t just about solving problems -- it’s also about creating things that can surprise and delight us all.
Faculty Sponsor:
Tyler Markkanen
Location:
Field House
Presentation Category:
Science
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Presenters:
Wycliffe Acquah, Andrew Soltys, Aavash Mainali
Session:
Posters and Multimedia - Session 3
Year:
Fourth Year
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