Final SET write up:
QUESTION: If you laid out every single card in the deck and started taking out sets, would you end up with no remaining cards or is there one group of cards that has no set?
ANSWER: If you were to lie every single SET card on the table at one time and begin one large game of looking for sets that belong together, sets that increase from one to three in numeric value, and contain the same color and pattern, you would eventually run out of cards. The game is designed to have the ability to
How to play Set like a champ:
Set is pretty simple. It's just looking for patters, so if you're good at that, then I guess you can play set. There are a few different types of things that create the set game. There's different colors, shapes, patters the shapes and the quantity of shapes on a card.
In the shapes category, there is...
1. The Diamond
2. The Squiggly
3. The Oval
The three colors are...
1. Purple
2. Green
3. Orange
And the three patterns are...
1. Solid
2. Empty
3. Partially filled
There are three cards that involve each shape on the board at one time. One card has one of the shapes, the second card has two, and the third card has three. Since the deck is shuffled, finding a pattern this way is often easier said than done, but other ways to score a point in set are to find pattern. When looking for a pattern, you have to look at the cards and see if they correlate in any way. Ways you can score a point are...
1. All cards are different. All different shapes, all different patterns, all different colors and different quantities of shapes.
2. Three different shapes with three different colors. Same quantity and pattern
3. Quantity of cards increase from one to three with same pattern. Different shapes and color.
4. Same quantity, same pattern, different shapes
Finding a pattern that involves one of these will result in the ability to call set and claim the pattern as a point.
Here are some pictures of me destroying my table mates in a round of Set in class a few days ago:
My Set Experiences:
I can see that when I look back on my set experiences, I am not one to find consistent patterns. I kinda just go for whatever I can get, and since I know all the potential outcomes for a set to be found, I see a lot of things on the board. It tends to be a tad bit overwhelming to look for all the possible combinations at once, but if I narrow my search down to look for one specific set possibility with just one type of cards, it becomes a lot easier. I like to look for just one combination possibility at one time because it reduces the risk of confusion through an overwhelming amount of cards. Trying to not get confused is the best tactic through the Set game, because getting confused is what makes it so tough to find set combinations.
Questions
I am curios as to how the Set game pertains to mathematics because I know there must be some formula that is used in the game that allows for easier Set finding, but that's just a question. I strongly doubt that there is and I think that maybe this game was played because it forces us to think creatively which is helpful for the math that we're doing. I dunno, but hey, it's a fun game so that's always a good thing.