Juggling the Chemistry Locker Padlocks with Computer Assistance

Juggling the Chemistry Locker Padlocks with Computer Assistance A Fortran IV computer program, LOCKS, has been developed for use in our chemistry laboratories to aid the instructor in the tedious operation of keeping track of padlock locations, dissemination of locker-padlock assignments and lock combinations to students, and generating directions for randomly redistributing locks between terms. Serial numbers and respective combinations for the total pool of locks are input in order of theirinitial locker locations, donz with directions for Lock interchanee: those lockers to have locks chaneed (S total number of lockers) and the minimum distGre the locks e to be shifted A sub of lockers mav, be soecified to Gave loch not suhiect ~- m -~ , to interchanee: ,. .some lockers may have no I d s : there may he more locks than lucken. Each lock s p i f i e d to be changed is then interchanged with another lwk rnndumly selected from the subset of eligible locks. Direetionr for the interchange are printed so that a lnhoratory sseisrant can resdilymake the shifts. If desired, a master list of all lock locations and combinations may be printed and a new data deck for the locks may be punched, giving the new ordering for input in a subsequent run. Upon inputing a list of locker numbers t o he issued to students, the program prints out locker number, lock number, and combination, with directions for opening the lock, in a format such that the paper may be cut into rectangular sections for distrihutiontostudents. If the number of locks to be changed is specified to be zero,the program may beusedsalely for printing such information. The program has been run on an IBM Systeml370 Model 168 computer and is compatible with both WATFIV and Fortran G compilers. A statement listing, sample data and output, and notes are available on request. ~

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T h e Pennsylvania State University Wilkes-Barre Campus Wilkes-Barre. 18708

692 / Journal of Chemical Education

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Wayne L. Felty