At this year’s AMATYC Annual Conference in Reno, the math modeling mindset made an impactful appearance at the COMAP booth. 

In between sessions and conversations, a simple desktop cornhole game kept drawing small crowds. And not because people were eager to win prizes, but because they were having fun… maybe more than they expected. And that “fun” turned into something else entirely: a real-world lesson in mathematical modeling.

The Question Behind the Game

The tournament was built on a modeling activity that COMAP has used with students:

What makes a game the most fun?

Students explored that question by experimenting with two distances, testing different scoring systems, and debating what makes a game feel “just right.” Through their tinkering, they learned that if you invite people to question the rules (even just a little), they don’t stop at the first idea. They keep going.

We used three of those student-designed twists at AMATYC, giving attendees the chance to model the game for themselves.

Three Days, Three Versions of Cornhole

The booth ran a three-day tournament, and each day showcased a different variation suggested by students. The cornhole boards were set 5.5 feet (short board) and 7.5 feet (long board) from the throwing line.

Day 1 (Thursday): Choose Your Strategy

Participants could throw any of the eight bags at either the short or the long board.

Scoring:

• Hit the board: 1 point
• Land on the board: 2 points
• Get it in the hole: 3 points

People immediately started debating which board was “better,” which distance felt fair, and whether the optimal strategy was accuracy or was it consistency.

Day 2 (Friday): Required Variety

Players had to throw four bags at the short board and four at the long board.

Scoring stayed the same, but the strategy shifted. Now the question wasn’t just “Which board is easier?” It became:

• Should the scoring reflect the different difficulty levels of the game?
• Is forcing equal attempts the best way to balance the challenge of the game as well as fairness?

Day 3 (Saturday): Scoring Overhaul

Saturday’s twist came directly from students who once argued that distance should matter. They wanted the long board to “reward risk” and the short board to reward accuracy.

Scoring:

• Hit the short board: 1 point
• Hit the long board: 2 point
• Land on the short board: 2 points
• Land on the long board: 3 points
• Get it in the hole of the short board: 3 points
• Get it in the hole of the long board: 4 points

Suddenly, players were talking more about the system than just winning the game:

• Is the long board worth the risk?
• Is this more fun or less fun?
• Does this make the game too hard?
• Is there a “Goldilocks” distance that keeps it challenging while not making it too discouraging?

Why a Cornhole Game Became a Modeling Lesson

While people waited in line, almost everyone instinctively began analyzing and redesigning.

Someone would play a round, step aside, and begin explaining why the scoring wasn’t capturing something important. Another person would propose a new structure. Others compared results across days, trying to reverse-engineer which version was “best.”

This is the modeling mindset:

You pause.

You ask a question.

You adjust an assumption.

You follow where the process takes you.

As it turns out, math modeling can happen anywhere, even if you’re in a hotel ballroom, with a few beanbags and two wooden boards.

Read more about the math modeling mindset:

• How the Math Modeling Mindset Prepares Students for Real Life
• Math Modeling Mindset and an Orange Juice Machine
• What is Math Modeling? It's a Noun! It's a Verb! It's a Mindset???