Abundant Buses

A Maths Starter of The Day

Two players play a game with every bus number they see.

Player 1 doubles the bus number. Player 2 adds up its factors.

Whoever gets the largest total wins.     Play the game with a friend.

 

 

 

 

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Keywords: Starter | Arithmetic | Factors | Mental Methods | Mixed | Number Patterns

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This starter has scored a mean of 2.6 out of 5 based on 16 votes.
 

  

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Answers

Bus
Number		 Double Factors Sum of Factors Winner
1 2 1 1 Player 1
2 4 1 2 3 Player 1
3 6 1 3 4 Player 1
4 8 1 2 4 7 Player 1
5 10 1 5 6 Player 1
6 12 1 2 3 6 12 Draw
7 14 1 7 8 Player 1
8 16 1 2 4 8 15 Player 1
9 18 1 3 9 13 Player 1
10 20 1 2 5 10 18 Player 1
11 22 1 11 12 Player 1
12 24 1 2 3 4 6 12 28 Player 2
13 26 1 13 14 Player 1
14 28 1 2 7 14 24 Player 1
15 30 1 3 5 15 24 Player 1
16 32 1 2 4 8 16 31 Player 1
17 34 1 17 18 Player 1
18 36 1 2 3 6 9 18 39 Player 2
19 38 1 19 20 Player 1
20 40 1 2 4 5 10 20 42 Player 2
21 42 1 3 7 21 32 Player 1
22 44 1 2 11 22 36 Player 1
23 46 1 23 24 Player 1
24 48 1 2 3 4 6 8 12 24 60 Player 2
25 50 1 5 25 31 Player 1

It is better to be Player 1! It is much easier to double a number than work out the factors and add them up and as you can see Player 1 is more likely to win.

Player 2 will only win when the bus number is an "abundant number". What is the next abundant number after 24?

List of solutions up to 1000
Teacher, do your students have one to one access to computers?

Whether your students each have a TabletPC or share a desktop PC, this activity lends itself to eLearning (Engaged Learning).

Students could use a spreadsheet to produce a list of abundant numbers.

 

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