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State Machine Pass

The problem

Trying to teach how finite state machines work.

Participants and props

Everybody in the class plays the game. The only prop needed is a ball. A diagram of the state machine is drawn on the board. The state machine will have two paths it can go down to reach the final state.

The script

The ball is thrown to a student in the class. They will be at state 0. They will be presented a condition to move to the next state. If they answer right they toss the ball to another student. If they get it wrong they keep the ball and take another turn. This continues until the final state is reached.

Acknowledgments

Created by Josh Wilkerson and Tony McCarthy