This More Maths Grads resource, from the Maths Careers website, investigates the maths used in transport and is based on the travelling salesman problem.

Students are given a table containing information on the cost of air travel between nine different cities and asked to plan a route that visits each...

The purpose of bin packing is to pack a collection of objects into containers called bins. The bins are all the same size and the objects to be packed are different sizes. The aim is to pack the objects into the bins using the fewest possible bins. In this example students are asked to save computer files onto a CD...

In this activity, students create colour images from satellite data. This allows them to study how different surfaces reflect different wavelengths of light, how coloured images are created using an RGB model, and how band combinations can be chosen to examine a particular landscape effectively.

This resource, from the Royal Institution, provides students with the opportunity to explore the formation of a parabola through a paper folding activity. Students follow a set of simple instructions which describe how to fold a piece of A4 paper and are asked to describe what shape is produced. The activity is...

Dijkstra's algorithm finds the shortest path for a given problem. Dijkstra's algorithm can be used to find the shortest route between two cities. This algorithm is so powerful that it not only finds the shortest path from a chosen source to a given destination, it also finds all of the shortest paths from the...

The network flow problem involves finding the optimum route through a flow network; a directed graph where each arc has a capacity and each arc receives a flow. Typical examples include: evacuation plans and delivery services. The problem involves students analysing the plan of a school canteen and deciding whether...

Linear Programming involves creating a function that represents a real life problem. The aim is to optimise this function given certain constraints. Simple examples of linear programming will have few variables and constraints, however, real life situations will have many more variables and constraints that will...

A matching is a set of edges on a bipartite graph in which no two edges share a common vertex. A bipartite graph consists of two sets of vertices X and Y. The edges only join vertices in X to vertices in Y. A matching in a bipartite graph is the pairing of some or all of the vertices in X with some or all of the...

This activity is an ideal opportunity to use the real-world context of logistics as an application of solving multi-step mathematical problems and evaluating the outcomes. It is one of three mathematical problem-solving activities with a...

This activity is an ideal opportunity to use the real-world context of logistics to demonstrate the practical use of greedy...

This activity is an ideal opportunity to use the real-world context of logistics to develop students' use of formal...

The aim of a minimum spanning tree is to connect every vertex of the network using the edges having the least possible total weight. The task requires students to analyse information about a town centre and suggest which roads should be pedestrianized. [

Minimum spanning tree: presentation...

This optimisation problem is an ideal opportunity to use the real-world context of logistics as an application of first fit, first fit decreasing and full bin algorthims.

In this activity students have to decide how to pack a number of items into the least number of parcels possible, within certain...

This optimisation problem is an ideal opportunity to use the real-world context of logistics as an application of a first fit decreasing algorthim.

In this activity students have to decide how to cut pieces of wood to make a shelving unit using the least number of planks of wood, within certain constraints....