An interactive take on learning Operations Research

Operations Research takes real-world problems, approximates them with a mathematical model, and then uses an algorithm to find good or even optimal solutions – given certain constraints. Straightforward as this may sound, some students struggle with making the translation from real-life to an abstract set of equations and the other way around.

The team with Alessandro Bombelli, assistant professor at the Aerospace Engineering Faculty, set out to create an engaging and fun way to help students get their head around this. “Operations research is being taught at various faculties across TU Delft – first in general terms and then applied to specific domains,” he says. “The underlying principles are the same. We wanted to develop something that would be useful for all students, regardless of the faculty. And to make it open source.”

Tangible games

Most of the funding they received went to developing various (mostly physical) games. “These games do not specifically delve into the underlying math, but it helps students to engage with Operations Research in a fun way,” Bombelli says. “Take the classic knapsack problem, for example, in which one must fill a backpack with items of diverse value and weight, aiming for maximum value within a weight constraint. We turned this into a card game involving a warrior that needs to defeat some monsters if he wants to stay alive.” Development was mostly carried out by co-applicant Doris Boschma, of the Gamelab at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, which is specialized in developing games and simulations with a research perspective. The games are available to anyone in a print and play format.

Outside the box

The team has played and refined the games together with colleagues and students, getting good feedback – to make the higher levels a bit more challenging, for example. Alessandro also gave a workshop on the games at the TU Delft Education Day, gathering more feedback. “One of the attendees was a lecturer from computer science, teaching Operation Research from a more algorithm design perspective,” Bombelli says. “He played the game with his students, with me attending. We’re very proud for a project outcome to have left our developers’ realm, even before project completion.”

He may give another workshop at the TU Delft Teaching Academy and is planning an official release and perhaps some promotion at project completion. “The cherry would be for it to be picked up by people from the other side of the world too and get an email it helped them.”

Book and code

Another output of the project is an open-source textbook which is intended to be more engaging than available resources, both in content and graphics. “It explains certain Operations Research concepts in a way that we deem more understandable,” Bombelli says. “We also made great effort, and take pride in, the quality of the figures and layout of the book. It is not the first such resource, but it is ours: we can control, change, and continually improve it. Again, I can’t imagine a better reward than having people all over the world use it.”

The soon to be published book will be accompanied by source code examples, showing the translation of real-world problems into the realm of Operations Research. “It has been a joint effort with my other two co-applicants (together with Doris), colleagues and friends Bilge Atasoy from Mechanical Engineering and Stefano Fazi from Technology, Policy, and Management,” Bombelli says. “Our shared expertise and effort made it possible to complete a first version of the book within a very tight schedule. And the funding allowed us to hire a teaching assistant who helped with gathering, cleaning up, and formatting the code examples.”

Follow suit

Funding by the Open Education Stimulation Fund not only helped to pay for development support, it also provided deadlines, thus creating a time-frame in which content had to be delivered. “Without their support, it might have remained an idea in the back of our heads and never have materialized,” Bombelli says. “Now we have an open-source textbook and three games.”

Despite the sizeable time commitment, he found the project manageable and a lot of fun to do. He would certainly recommend other lecturers to follow suit. “It is so very different from a textbook or video-lecture. Even if the students do not find it super useful, it will make the course more engaging. And you get to meet useful colleagues outside of your inner circle. For me, it has been very interesting getting to collaborate with the Gamelab.”