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Description

A version of the dining problem played as a game using Smarties, plates and forks. The game is played in groups of 5 but it can work with more.

Resources

Chopsticks (or forks), bowl of Smarties, plates, table & chairs or chalk circle.

Instructions

Look up Philosopher's Dining problem on wikipedia for background and explain to participants.

Split into groups of ideally 5 players/ philosophers

Philosophers Dining Problem
5 Philosophers are sitting in a circle. Each has a plate in front of them and a chopstick to their left. There is a bowl of Smarties in the middle.

Rules:
• The meal lasts 3 minutes.
• During the meal Philosophers can only take Smarties if they have two chopsticks and can only use the chopsticks to convey the Smarties to their own plate.
• You can only pick up one chopstick at a time.
• You must put down your chopsticks if you are not using them.
• At the end of the meal each philosopher can eat all of the Smarties on their plate but only if everyone has at least one Smartie.

Winner is the Patrol with the most Smarties eaten (within the rules of the game).

Option: Explain the relevance of the problem to computing. Designers of computer systems use the Philosophers Dining Problem to model how rival computer programmes executing simultaneously can share scarce resources without any of them “starving” or the system as a whole becoming “deadlocked”.

Formatted instructions attached

Tags

• Problem solving and game

Badge Links

• Skills - Problem solving