Easiest Way to Create an Interactive, "Multi-Factor" Game/Exercise?
May 4, 2016 6:28 AM Subscribe
Programming-challenged foodie here, trying to create a cooking activity for a staff event: From a list, you choose ingredient A as a starting point. Then you choose other ingredients to add to A (D and W, say), and see the result: A+D+W—a dish you can make at home. How can I create something (digital, paper, or otherwise) that allows people to choose any ingredient, add any others, and see a possible resulting dish?
To be clear: this is not an activity using actual food—it's just a visual representation of what putting different ingredients together will get you.
Just adding one ingredient to another would be easy, of course—I'd just make a chart or a spreadsheet that kicked out a result of A+B, or C+H, or whatever. But the point of the exercise is to show people how you can keep a pantry of staples on hand, then create different dishes depending on what you might have in the fridge (or what else you have in the pantry, for that matter). So I'd like to be able to make it a little more dynamic, pulling together maybe three ingredients per turn, with a total list of ingredients to choose from of 8 or 10 items.
I just don't know what platform, program, or app I would use, and what the mechanics at work would be. As I have very limited programming skills, and downright horrible math skills, is this too much for me to try to bite off (har har)? Or am I thinking about this all wrong altogether—could I accomplish this on paper or by some other means?
To be clear: this is not an activity using actual food—it's just a visual representation of what putting different ingredients together will get you.
Just adding one ingredient to another would be easy, of course—I'd just make a chart or a spreadsheet that kicked out a result of A+B, or C+H, or whatever. But the point of the exercise is to show people how you can keep a pantry of staples on hand, then create different dishes depending on what you might have in the fridge (or what else you have in the pantry, for that matter). So I'd like to be able to make it a little more dynamic, pulling together maybe three ingredients per turn, with a total list of ingredients to choose from of 8 or 10 items.
I just don't know what platform, program, or app I would use, and what the mechanics at work would be. As I have very limited programming skills, and downright horrible math skills, is this too much for me to try to bite off (har har)? Or am I thinking about this all wrong altogether—could I accomplish this on paper or by some other means?
Perhaps the Brinkman Wordsmith could be of inspiration? It can't generate truly unique results ("vodka"+"orange juice"="screwdriver") but it's a step in that direction.
posted by teremala at 7:10 AM on May 4, 2016
posted by teremala at 7:10 AM on May 4, 2016
Seems like how minecraft lets you 'craft' certain elements into tools.
posted by Wild_Eep at 7:12 AM on May 4, 2016
posted by Wild_Eep at 7:12 AM on May 4, 2016
if you have 10 options then there are "10C3" = 120 different possible combinations. finding that many recipes yourself, and placing them in some kind of database, is going to be a lot of work.
so i would either use a third party tool (like the supercook recommendation above, if it works for you), or address this in a different way. for example as a group discussion - three people could choose three different ingredients and then you could discuss possible solutions. since you likely have many more than 120 recipes in your heads, that is likely going to be easier.
posted by andrewcooke at 8:08 AM on May 4, 2016
so i would either use a third party tool (like the supercook recommendation above, if it works for you), or address this in a different way. for example as a group discussion - three people could choose three different ingredients and then you could discuss possible solutions. since you likely have many more than 120 recipes in your heads, that is likely going to be easier.
posted by andrewcooke at 8:08 AM on May 4, 2016
Sounds fun.
It instantly makes me think of a chart on amino acids that you might see in a biology class. Here's one that is fairly straightforward in showing how 4 "ingredients" combine to make different "recipes" (note that in this case ingredients can be used two or three times per recipe).
I could see making a somewhat manageable chart for up to about 8 ingredients (might need ledger-sized paper at some point). It might not be terribly "interactive" to have a chart, but it also might be more interactive than you'd think. Reading a chart like that can be interesting, and having your whole data set available in one visualization in this way might help participants (or you) draw out whatever surprising patterns lurk beneath the surface.
I think this chart of the same information is a little sexier (even if it creates the misleading impression that it is a recipe for delicious guacamole). I imagine one could create a similar wheel for more ingredients. Again, I'm feeling like more than 8 might become unwieldy. At 8 ingredients you'd have 56 "second level" sections as opposed to the 16 on the amino acid chart. However, I can also imagine adding a "hands-on" aspect to the wheeled version, a la the Brinkman wheel suggested by teremala: The 56 two-ingredients pairs are listed on an inner wheel, and the 8 base ingredients are listed on an outer wheel. When you align your two-ingredient base pair from the inner wheel with an arrow on the outer wheel, a window in the outer wheel "magically" shows the resulting recipes next to the 8 final ingredients listed on the outer wheel, kinda like a crackerjack decoder disc.
Maybe these aren't what you're looking for, but in the absence of coding skills, this is the route I might consider. There are obviously lots of ways to go with this. One hard part to paper solutions like I'm describing might be that a single 3-ingredient combo might generate a dozen recipes (whereas other combos might generate one or none).
I'd love to see whatever you come up with. Good luck
posted by etc. at 8:31 AM on May 4, 2016
It instantly makes me think of a chart on amino acids that you might see in a biology class. Here's one that is fairly straightforward in showing how 4 "ingredients" combine to make different "recipes" (note that in this case ingredients can be used two or three times per recipe).
I could see making a somewhat manageable chart for up to about 8 ingredients (might need ledger-sized paper at some point). It might not be terribly "interactive" to have a chart, but it also might be more interactive than you'd think. Reading a chart like that can be interesting, and having your whole data set available in one visualization in this way might help participants (or you) draw out whatever surprising patterns lurk beneath the surface.
I think this chart of the same information is a little sexier (even if it creates the misleading impression that it is a recipe for delicious guacamole). I imagine one could create a similar wheel for more ingredients. Again, I'm feeling like more than 8 might become unwieldy. At 8 ingredients you'd have 56 "second level" sections as opposed to the 16 on the amino acid chart. However, I can also imagine adding a "hands-on" aspect to the wheeled version, a la the Brinkman wheel suggested by teremala: The 56 two-ingredients pairs are listed on an inner wheel, and the 8 base ingredients are listed on an outer wheel. When you align your two-ingredient base pair from the inner wheel with an arrow on the outer wheel, a window in the outer wheel "magically" shows the resulting recipes next to the 8 final ingredients listed on the outer wheel, kinda like a crackerjack decoder disc.
Maybe these aren't what you're looking for, but in the absence of coding skills, this is the route I might consider. There are obviously lots of ways to go with this. One hard part to paper solutions like I'm describing might be that a single 3-ingredient combo might generate a dozen recipes (whereas other combos might generate one or none).
I'd love to see whatever you come up with. Good luck
posted by etc. at 8:31 AM on May 4, 2016
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posted by damayanti at 6:36 AM on May 4, 2016