Lab Assigner University of Pennsylvania Brindza, Jordan Lee, Alexandra May, 2010

This program solves the problem of dividing up a class every lab (which occurred anywhere from 5-10 times per semester) into groups such that two students would work in the same group a minimum number of times.

The program uses Python and a third party package NumPy.

Both packages can be downloaded here: Python: http://www.python.org/download/ NumPy: http://new.scipy.org/download.html

To run the program... on Windows: Click on the lab_assigner.bat file. (The .bat file assumes you are using Python2.6) Linux or MaxOS: In a terminal from the lab_assigner/ directory, run $ python schoolgirl.py

The program will then prompt you to enter some needed information to run.

1. The total number of students in the class/lab section.
2. The total number of labs the students will complete.
3. For each lab you will enter the baseline group size for that lab. (NOTE: The program will never assign a group with less than this baseline number. If the students cannot be divided up evenly the extra students will be added on to other groups.)
4. The filename to save the results to. If left blank it will just print the results to the screen, otherwise it will save them in a text file of the name given. (NOTE: If a file of that name already exists then IT WILL BE OVERWRITTEN.)
5. The time limit for the program to run. In some configurations there is no perfect solution where no two students work together twice. If the program has not found a solution by the time limit it will print out the best solution found to that point. (For most configurations it should take a few seconds to a minute to complete, I would recommend using 5 minutes as a time limit.)