Radix Sort and Story Cards
Manish Jain and Neha Garg

Proceedings of Bridges 2023: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Culture
Pages 513–516
Short Papers

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a tangible recreational activity that can instantiate computational thinking. In order to demonstrate a sequencing algorithm, we developed a set of story cards that can be sorted using a binary-based Radix sort. Each card has a set of punched markings that represent the assigned position of the card in the story sequence. On passing a skewer through the cards one-by-one, they can be sorted. This idea is extended to ternary representations using three different kinds of markings on the cards. This activity helps to demonstrate both the algorithm and the representation of numbers in Binary and Ternary in a tangible and accessible manner for students.

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