Activity: Formulating the Problem Mathematically

You may wish to take photos of your responses or print a copy of your responses so that
you can refer to them when you meet your group mates.

Q1
Identifying the problem and the intent of solving the problem
What is the problem to be solved? What is your team supposed to do?
Rephrase the problem in your own words.

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Problem: Pandemic of EBOVID-50 causing Cartesiana to go into lockdown, but

residents need to be vaccinated. We are tasked to vaccinate all medically eligible
residents of Cartesiana with as little resources as possible and as quick as
possible. This involves setting up vaccination centres across the country.

Rephrased Problem/Task: To set up vaccination centres across the country close to

all/most residents of Cartesiana using the least amount of staff

Q2
Information given and information needed
a) What do you already know about the problem? What information is given?
b) What other information do you need? Where can you find this information?

a) Information known:
3 million residents and 2000 medical personnel
Map of Cartesiana as well as its 8 districts
2 doses of vaccine for a person to be considered as fully vaccinated, and
the second dose has to be administered at least 21 days after the first dose
Children younger than 16 years old are not medically eligible for vaccination
 People with a severe allergic reaction to any component of the EBOVID-50
vaccine should not receive the vaccine

Small Centre Big Centre

No. of staff needed to operate each 40 70

centre

No. of people that can be 2000 4000

vaccinated in each centre per day

b) Information unknown:
Population demographics*
Distribution of Cartesiana*
Formula for Resource Index of plan*

*Information will only be given by teacher on the Challenge day.

Q3
Identifying variables & constants
Identify the variables and constants in this problem. What can be changed? What cannot
be changed?

Variables:
Number of big and small vaccination centres needed
Locations of all the vaccination centres
Number of staff needed to operate all the vaccination centres
Number of days needed to administer 2 doses to all its medically eligible
residents (the vaccination period)
Constants:
The number of residents
Number of medically eligible residents
The map of Cartesiana
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Q4
Making assumptions to simplify the problem (but not oversimplifying it)
What assumptions do you have to make to simplify this real-world problem into a
mathematical problem?
E g We can assume that all medically eligible residents are willing to take the vaccine
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There are no vaccination centres set up at first

There is a negligible number of people who have severe allergic reactions
The time taken to build the vaccination centre is negligible.

Q5
How would you solve this problem?

It is very important to note that your team mates may have other ways and may have
identified other assumptions. Hence, on the day of the Challenge, it is crucial that your
team decides on which method to use after considering everyone's opinion.
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Decide how many small and big vaccination centres to use to reduce the number of
staff needed and the total vaccination period. After that, decide where to place them
so that residents do not spend a long time travelling to the centres to reduce the total
vaccination period
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