Publisher: Sunburst

Reviewed by Karl Bedowin

SCHOOL SUBJECTS: mathematics, economics

GRADE LEVEL: 6 - 12

PLATFORM USED FOR EVALUATION: Macintosh

HARD DISK OR CD-ROM?: disk

TIME TO PLAY: 15 to 30 minutes

RATING: 9

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM:

Hot Dog Stand is a simple educational program where you act as the manager of a hot dog stand. The scenario for the program is as follows. Your hot dog stand is located at the local football field. You have eight games in which you are to try and earn $2500 from an initial investment of $200. You can sell a variety of things, from soda, chips, to of course, hot dogs. You also have a variety of purchasing options such as the quality of hot dogs and quantity purchase discounts. It is up to the player, the manager, to make the appropriate purchases based on the weather and expected sales, set prices so as to maximize profits, and continue this throughout the season. The game ends when the eighth game is finished.

The program is quite easy to learn and use. First, the tool bar at the top of the screen offers many options to the user. The FILE menu allows you to start a new game, open a previously saved game, save games, and also print the screen. The EDIT menu allows you to cut, copy, paste and clear, although I am at a loss to explain the need for these items. The last menu item, the SIMULATION menu, allows you to do a number of things.

First of all, you can have a description of the game appear on the screen. This description gives you all the needed information to play the game, which isn't much since the game is so simple. The second thing that you can do is call up the football schedule. This screen gives good information as to the time the game is to be played and the significance of the game. This information could be helpful in deciding what to purchase for the stand. Next is the INFO/INVENTORY screen. This screen gives information relating to your current bank balance, weather forecast, and the inventory you have on hand at the stand. After that you have the REPLAY option. This allows a user to replay an already completed eight game schedule. The advantage to this is that you can recall from the game your previous purchases and make new decisions based on a sort of 'Monday morning quarterback' idea. The simulation is then repeated using your new decisions about what to purchase for the hot dog stand.

The last two items under the SIMULATION menu allow the user to view the Top Ten Players as well as accelerate the speed at which the game is played. This accelerated speed option just eliminates the minimal graphics which are in the program and helps to speed things up. This is an asset to the classroom where there may not be enough computers for all the students, or where the instructor finds that they are strapped for time. The game, as I have mentioned earlier, is quite simple. First, you see the schedule of games for the season. The schedule, as stated above, provides

The next screen which appears is the info/inventory screen. This screen, as you can see gives information regarding your bank balance, the weather forecast, and the inventory at your hot dog stand.

From the Info/inventory screen you go to the purchasing screen. From here you make the decisions about what to stock your hot dog stand with. As you can see, there are several options open to the purchaser. As purchases are made, the number ordered, the price of each item, and the total price of each purchase is listed on the screen. Once you have made your purchase, the user must now set the prices for their goods. After the user has decided what to price the goods at, the game then begins. After the football game, the sales for that game are displayed. The sales screen provides the user with information relating to the amount of each item sold, the total monetary value of the items sold, and the bank balances prior to the game and after. The game continues in this manner until the end of the eighth game. At this point, if you have made the targeted $2500 in sales, then you receive a commendation.

EVALUATION OF THE PROGRAM:

The program'Hot Dog Stand' is a well contrived program in that in its simplicity lies a vast amount of uses for the mathematics teacher, as well as an instructor in business. First of all, the program allows the instructor to invest their time more wisely given the accelerated program option which would allow students to complete a simulation much more rapidly than some other programs. Secondly, the very simplicity of the program itself makes it extremely easy for children in the grades of 6-12 to use the program with practically no prior instruction. The program also offers benefits to the user. Although it is simple, and lacks any real imaginary or eye catching graphics, the program is gender neutral. Given the straightforward idea behind the program, it also has the potential of appealing to a wide variety of learning styles. Some drawbacks to the program may also be its simplicity. With little to no graphics and a very repetitive schedule of football games, some students may find the program boring and uninteresting. I think, however, that creative use of the program by a teacher will cancel out any of these problems. I would recommend this program to any math teacher who is looking for creative ways to teach lessons in such things as graphing, etc. There are many possible uses in mathematics for this program, and a creative teacher will find that using this program can be an asset. On a scale of 1-10,

APPLICATION OF THE PROGRAM:

Once the program is in use, many off-shoot lessons can be incorporated into the simulation. Students can do things like analyze data, predict trends, make graphs, investigate relationships between variables such as the weather, time of game, and the amount of sales. Students can create their own research from what they gain in the program. One possible scenario is for the students, in cooperation with several local businesses, to monitor the businesses sales over a period of several weeks. Students could research whether sales rise on weekends, whether or not sales rise after 5 P.M. when most people get out of work, does the weather on a particular day affect the sales of a business? A simple program such as'Hot Dog Stand' offers many options and avenues for further instruction.