Using Games to Model Semi-Direct Products — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Using Games to Model Semi-Direct Products

Name: Katherine Turek
Major: Math
Hometown: Plainfield, IL
Faculty Sponsor: Sara Jensen ’08
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Senior thesis

Abstract

When discussing semi-direct products in abstract algebra, it is often hard to visualize how this operation works. To solve this problem, a game with a series of variations was created to model semi-direct products, specifically based on a group with semi-direct product of order 42. This semi-direct product group contains the dihedral group of order 14 as a subgroup, thus helping students form connections between the types of groups. Each variation can be adapted to any semi-direct product group, with each variation building on students’ abilities to perform computations in that semi-direct product.