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Queen Mary University of London
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The 21 Card Trick
The book "The Magic of Computer Science" contains a variety of tricks that relate to various elements of computer science.
In this resource, the algorithm for which is then described, along with why this ensures that the trick will always work. This makes for a good starting point in order to get students analysing an existing solution and describing it using an algorithm. Once they have worked through this trick, a further activity might be to get them to analyse and "prove" (to an extent) the algorithm for another card trick, possibly from this book, possibly from another. Or if they modify the algorithm, what effect does it have on the trick? What happens if the column containing the chosen card is always the first one picked up (and placed on the top of the pack) or always the column placed on the bottom? Can they draw it out as a Flowchart? Can they explain their result by describing things with Pseudocode?
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The 21 Card Trick 477.92 KB
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The 21 Card Trick 477.92 KB
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