Simulation

Hi
The following is a practise test I am doing:

John is collecting a set of 4 Native Birds cards, from Oatie Flakes cereal packets.
The manufacturers of Oatie Flakes found that some of their machines malfunctioned and 20% of the packets of cereal contain 2 Native Birds cards instead of 1 card.

1. Design a simulation to predict the number of packets of Oatie Flakes that are required to obtain a full set of Native Birds cards.
Describe the simulation in sufficient detail so that another person could repeat it without your help.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to how I should do it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paulo1913

Hi
The following is a practise test I am doing:

John is collecting a set of 4 Native Birds cards, from Oatie Flakes cereal packets.
The manufacturers of Oatie Flakes found that some of their machines malfunctioned and 20% of the packets of cereal contain 2 Native Birds cards instead of 1 card.

1. Design a simulation to predict the number of packets of Oatie Flakes that are required to obtain a full set of Native Birds cards.
Describe the simulation in sufficient detail so that another person could repeat it without your help.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to how I should do it?

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Something like the following will give you an array containing a sample of the number of boxes needed to obtain a full set

Code:

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Ncases=100
outputs=zeros(1,Ncases)
 
for idx=1 to Ncases
  outputs(idx)=Npackets
end
 
//======================
 
function Npackets
  nn=0  //number of distinct cards held
  cards=zeros(1,4)  //array with 1's for held cards 0's otherwise
  while nn<4  // loop untill full set held
    xx=random;
    card=RandomInteger(1,4)  //first card in packet
    cards(card)=1
    if xx<0.2
      card=RandomInteger(1,4)  //second card if present
      cards(card)=1
    end
    nn=sum(cards)  //total number of distinct cards
  end
  return nn
endfunction

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RonL

Sorry but I don't understand that. Could you please transfer that into words?

Or if anyone else can think of something please let me know