Today we started off by debugging an encryption code to interpret messages. Then, the students modified the code, all done in Perl, to encrypt messages they knew nothing about. They encrypted the series of messages that led them to a "loot" hidden somewhere in the office.
After lunch we did a coin-flipping model with one person following the Monte Carlo method (stepping forward every time the coin landed on heads), and the other a continuous method of going on every second flip. They then went back to the classroom and made a Perl model of this that they could run thousands of times and get very accurate results.
Last, we looked at the forest fire model and the fractal microscope on Shodor's Interactivate site and we explored the different properties of each. We set different parameters for the fire to see how it affected the burn rate. With the fractal microscope we studied how the unique properties of this fractal can be used to generate interesting shapes.