Going beyond the basics: creating and inspiring problem solvers
A. J. Heidenberg, John Andrew Wasko · International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology · 2005
This paper offers a general discussion of a complex student project used in a first-semester, first-year mathematics course that goes beyond the basics taught in the class and inspires creative problem solving. The project requires the student to model the transition of vehicles among regions of a vehicle rental company. A penalty cost is introduced when the regional inventory drops below an established threshold. The project allows the company to move vehicles by rail among regions to reduce or alleviate the penalty cost. In this phase of the project, student teams attempt to minimize the total cost to the company (penalty cost plus transportation costs), thus searching for an ‘optimal’ solution. The project allows the students to use technology to numerically develop an approximate solution to a problem that is easily understood, but whose analytical solution goes well beyond the scope of the course.