Complementing the Linear-Programming Learning Experience with the Design and Use of Computerized Games: The Formula 1 Championship Game

TL;DR

This paper introduces a computerized Formula 1 game designed to teach complex math-modeling and optimization tasks through simulation, decision-making, and strategic resource allocation in a competitive racing context.

Contribution

It presents the design of a simulation-based game for teaching complex optimization problems and demonstrates its application in modeling decision-making in Formula 1 racing scenarios.

Findings

The game models complex multi-scale optimization problems.

Different prioritization strategies impact decision outcomes.

The game enhances understanding of complex-system modeling.

Abstract

This document focuses on modeling a complex situations to achieve an advantage within a competitive context. Our goal is to devise the characteristics of games to teach and exercise non-easily quantifiable tasks crucial to the math-modeling process. A computerized game to exercise the math-modeling process and optimization problem formulation is introduced. The game is named The Formula 1 Championship, and models of the game were developed in the computerized simulation platform MoNet. It resembles some situations in which team managers must make crucial decisions to enhance their racing cars up to the feasible, most advantageous conditions. This paper describes the game's rules, limitations, and five Formula 1 circuit simulators used for the championship development. We present several formulations of this situation in the form of optimization problems. Administering the budget to reach the best car adjustment to a set of circuits to win the respective races can be an approach. Focusing on the best distribution of each Grand Prix's budget and then deciding how to use the assigned money to improve the car is also the right approach. In general, there may be a degree of conflict among these approaches because they are different aspects of the same multi-scale optimization problem. Therefore, we evaluate the impact of assigning the highest priority to an element, or another, when formulating the optimization problem. Studying the effectiveness of solving such optimization problems turns out to be an exciting way of evaluating the advantages of focusing on one scale or another. Another thread of this research directs to the meaning of the game in the teaching-learning process. We believe applying the Formula 1 Game is an effective way to discover opportunities in a complex-system situation and formulate them to finally extract and concrete the related benefit to the context described.