Yes fair enough, but once again, if it cannot do this kind of problem, then exactly what can it do? In other words, what is a real world application of this device? I’d just like to see an example of the kind of things it can do, and there doesn’t necessarily need to be an explanation of how.
If it comes with a puzzle book, then include one of these puzzles in the marketing and advertising. So rather than say “this device generates patterns of coloured balls” you say "here is a logic puzzle it can solve. It solves it by generating patterns of coloured balls."
This is the point I’ve tried again and again and again to make the people at Turing Tumble see. To the nonmathematical person (me) it’s not obvious that its ability to generate patterns of balls assists with logic puzzles.
Just include a couple of examples of puzzles it can do with the implication that you need to buy the device to find out exactly how. That’s how marketing for anything works - diet products, for example, tell you the outcome of using their products (losing weight) but they don’t give you details. You have to buy the product for that. This is what TT need to do - give some outcomes with specific examples of puzzles it can solve, with the implication that you have to buy the thing to understand how it works
Well, READ THE MANUAL!
Yes this manual is useful. But is it available without buying it? If it isn’t, then the information in it is pointless
The link is a few messages up.
And I hope you never teach me maths. Your attitude stinks. You haven’t got a clue how education works. If I was teaching you chemistry I would work with you at your current level, to find out what you understood or knew. I would understand the problems through your eyes, and then gradually introduce the concepts required to advance your knowledge. You apparently don’t understrand this concept. You remind me of a physics tutor I had - his standard response was “if you don’t understand that then you must be quite stupid.” Totally lost on him was the fact that he had a PhD in physics and I was a first year student.
Every comment I’ve made on this device is to place the creators of this device in a position to see it through the eyes of a nonmathematical person, to assist them to market it better. And the reason is both simple and obvious - the world is full of clever ideas that were a commercial failure because they were marketed poorly
Let me ask again. Is this manual available from the TT website without having to create an account an ask questions on a discussion forum? If it is, then that’s fine, and potentail customers should be pointed to it with big arrows in the advertising material. If it isn’t, then they have a problem, which is exactly why I started this discussion
Just CLICK THE LINK!
You can search it up on the internet.
The specific purpose of Turing Tumble is to provide a hands-on way of learning how computers work and the fundamentals of programming by showing that switches connected together in clever ways can do smart things when falling marbles are used to trigger them. The falling marbles represent the flow of electricity and the various components represent different ways to control that flow of electricity and ultimately store information, which is how a computer works. This simple concept teaches coding strategy as well as abstract concepts like binary, binary operations, and logic gates in a fun, tangible way.
I do not have a teaching or mathematical background nor an IQ as impressive as you claim yours to be, but I found that information on their website and videos. I don’t know what to tell you, but their marketing seemed to work just fine for me.
The way registers are defined in the book is as a vertical stack, not a diagonal run. So, yes, if you’re willing to go diagonal, you can go above 31, which is what I as referring to as “cheating a bit”. On the other hand, if you have a diagonal counting up to 127, then that seriously limits what else you can do on the board - the biggest downward-counting register that could share that board would cap out at 7.
Hi Mark,
You have a valid point. I’m an experienced Computer Science teacher, with about thirty years experience in machine language coding and various high-level languages, and I had quite some difficulty in understanding what it was that could be done with Turing Tumble. I think that it may be a useful tool, but I will be very interested to see what my grandchildren make of it. I am beginning the process of designing puzzles which, hopefully, will lead them to interesting and useful ideas.
More later.
Yes - hopefully they take it on board. It wouldn’t be the first time that a good idea failed because it was marketed poorly
Interesting that you feel this way. I purchased 16 games for my classroom and I teach 12-14 years old students. Within 10 minutes they are off to the races learning the board with the puzzle challenges. No videos, no explanation other than what the game parts are and how to set up.
Complaint is accurate. I’m still trying to determine how to start.
First of all, they have one another for help. The students probably just guess for the fun of it. What are you there for, if they need no explanations?
Well I’m no dummy, but no brain either. I get how the parts work but determining how to use them to get the predetermined pattern at bottom is a mystery thus far. I guess just takes a lot of time and guesswork.
See a lot of information on how the project by the creators was formed and progressed. No explanations though on actually playing the game. Nothing like "this part causes ball to go left, add this parts causes ball to alternate blue then red…etc. "
Yes but nobody explains how to place parts to get predetermined pattern at bottom.
Nice job. Thank you for caring enough to let creators know.