Make: More Electronics

Chapter 21. Experiment 21: The Hot Slot

Previously, I mentioned that because a coin has no memory, it has the same chance of showing heads or tails every time you flip it. (See Chapter 17.) The odds are always the same. Likewise, the traditional “wheel of fortune” doesn’t remember where it stopped on the previous spin, and provided it is turned randomly each time, the odds of any number coming up never vary.

Not all games are like this. If you’ve ever played Battleship, for instance, you know that your odds of success will vary during the game, especially if you reach a point where you have eliminated a lot of empty squares, leaving your opponents’ ships nowhere to hide.

I decided to create a two-player coin game with variable odds. Initially the ...