PNConvert

Demo

Inspiration

Permutations and Combinations is a recent topic that is covered in our Mathematics classes in Junior College. As lessons progressed, we noticed that some students were having some difficulty solving the tutorial questions. This inspired us to make a simple and hassle free way for them to know what and how many solutions there are to the questions.

What it does

It outputs solutions to a world problem, allowing a user to find all the possible solutions to the problem in question on top of the total possible number of solutions. This allows it to cover multiple uses, such as solving the average P&C question a student may face, and can also double as a password generator of sorts, and can help people who are unaware of Permutations and Combinations to see various ways that they can arrange things according to their preference.

How we built it

We made use of C++ language and pre-loaded cases and formulas to identify and solve the P&C problems the users have. We were also working on publishing it as an Android app to improve accessibility. However, due to limited experience in Android application developing, we could not finish the application within the time limit.

Challenges we ran into

With this being the first hackathon that we have attended, we were unsure of what we should do and also felt daunted by the more experienced participants and their more sophisticated hacks. Some of our members are also relatively new to coding, and thus had difficulty coming up with ways to create what we had intended to.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Through this event, we've further polished our ability in programming, and have achieved our primary objective and completed our first 24 hour hackathon.

What we learned

We learned that there are a limitless number of hacks possible, and it is up to our creativity and willpower to make something happen.

What's next for PNConvert

Speech to text functionality is something that we would like to implement, such that a user simply needs to say their word problem that will promptly be solved by the program hands free. We are also looking into expanding its problem solving capability to other topics in Mathematics, such as others in the A-Level H2 syllabus and perhaps even Olympiad level questions. This is because as compared to relatively simpler P&C problems, more students are having difficulty with Mathematics Olympiad. We will try to combine our experience in Mathematics Olympiad and programming to ease their learning and hence promote Mathematics within the student body.