InsertDisplayName (yes, that's the real name) came in first with a generous donation of 123 coins. beeshi and Raymond Li followed as second and third, respectively.
Honorable Mentions
- Most WTF: cs40ccPTKz for "Singing fish: Bob is a sentient worm of the planet Wormyland. He buys 30 live-mouse futures today, and invests 10 w$ (worm dollars) into US gov bonds. Is his life meaningful? Will he be in a position to experience tomorrow (EST)?"
- Biggest flatterer :blush:: txiimamoy for "You're cute x)" The real question is which of the gamemasters is cuter though ;)
- Twins?!: masterchef and mcarolyn for "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa". Seriously. Down to the number of as.
The penalty assigned was 203.64. See below or here for full results.
Game 5 is closed. Check back on Sunday July 19 for results!
Note: The form box below and its description allow penalty amounts from 50-300, while the rules in the email state that the penalty amount is from 0 to 250 coins. The latter is a typo, and has been corrected below.
We have also fixed an additional typo in the math formula, which did not include the multiplier at first.
Game 5: Institvte FUNdraising
As you end your time at the Missouri Institute of Taxidermy, the Fund for Undergraduate Nonsense drive (FUNd) is calling you up and asking for donations again. You have 1000 coins that you can donate to the FUNd. This fund is incredibly successful; each coin invested in it becomes 50 coins! But, because it is meant to support all students at the Institvte, after the money is increased fifty-fold, the FUNd is split evenly among all students.
Because free food has not proved successful in the past for encouraging donations, the FUNd managers are using a new tactic. The students whose donations fall into the lowest quartile (25%) will be penalized by some amount from 50 to 300 coins. The exact penalty amount will be determined by your fellow students; each student will submit an amount they would like to penalize the lowest donors for taking advantage of their generosity. The penalty given will be the average of all penalties submitted. This penalty is meant to discourage “free riders,” as in a world with no punishment, the person who donates the least is best off.
The goal is to end up with as many total coins as possible. To recap, each player will receive (50 * number of coins invested in the FUNd / total number of players) coins from the FUNd. In addition, if you’re in the lowest 25% of donors, you’ll be punished by the mean of everyone’s selected penalties. If multiple people happen to submit at the 25th percentile, all will be penalized. As a tiebreaker, please guess the mean of all penalties submitted.
If you’re a weird course 18: if you decide to donate c coins when there are n players (including you) that submit C coins total, your score will be 1000 - c + ( 50C / n ). The least generous 25% of players will have their coin total reduced by P, the average penalty submitted.
The deadline for playing is Thursday, July 16 at 12pm ET. Results and information about the final game will be released on Sunday, July 19 at ~12pm ET.
And, of course — play here.
We wish you the best of luck.