Logic Puzzles Workshop: Sequences, 24, Combinatorics, and the Yellow Bananas

On Sunday, October 27, over 50 girls attended the All Girls STEM Society’s first Logic Workshop at Mission Valley Public Library. This workshop, created by Emma, Mira, and Clare, challenged the girls with many fun hands-on puzzles and kept the girls active and engaged.  ​

Many of the participants had already attended other AGSS workshops before. One girl asked when the next Scratch Workshop was because her sister had attended the last Scratch Workshop and she wanted to “learn what [her] sister learned!”

“Are you all excited?” Co-President Amanda asked once everyone had been seated. The girls answered with a chorus of “Yes!” 

The workshop began with an introduction to logic by Emma. The girls tackled many brain teasers, which increased in difficulty with each question. All participants were encouraged to work together on the puzzles, and the room was filled with the buzz of lively conversations as volunteers walked around to answer questions. After a few exercises, the girls were then introduced to arithmetic and geometric sequences and series, and even the infinite series. These concepts were new for a lot of the participants. One girl exclaimed during one exercise, “This is the hardest problem that I’ve ever done!” 

Emma then handed off the workshop to Mira, who introduced the game “24 cards.” The goal of this game was to make the number 24 from the four numbers shown on the given cards. The rules were that they could add, subtract, multiply, and divide the numbers, but they could only use each number once. “I got it!” participant Laura yelped gleefully to her friend after much trial and error. One group even wrote down the numbers on the cards as to solve the puzzle later after the time was up.

After the break, the girls worked on some past AMC 8 problems. They were then introduced to combinatorics, starting with some simple shirts and pants problems. They were then asked the different ways to rearrange words, such as FBI and AGSS (All Girls Stem Society).  

The workshop ended with a logic competition, where the girls split into teams and chose creative team names such as “The Yellow Bananas,” and “Pumpkin Pi.” The competition questions tested the same concepts that were introduced earlier in the workshop.  
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This workshop was a highly interactive workshop that challenged its participants with many different types of logic problems.