Examples provided here are purely for illustrating software features and functionality.

Example DT-1 – Birthday Party Menu Design

Download Example File for Version 10 (*.rsgz10) or Version 9 (*.rsr9)

Problem Statement:

Your nine year old daughter is about to have a birthday party and she invited forty of her friends. Of course, you are in charge of serving them lunch. Due to budgetary constraints, you decide to do it yourself rather than have it catered.

You have hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza on the menu. Assume the following:

• Each nine year old will eat two items.
• The probability that the first item is a hamburger is 50%. If the first item is a hamburger, then the second item may be a slice of pizza (60%), another hamburger (30%) or a hot dog (10%).
• If the first item is a slice of pizza (30%) then the second item may be another slice of pizza (60%), a hot dog (20%) or a hamburger (20%).
• If the first item is a hot dog (20%), then the second item may be another hot dog (80%), a slice of pizza (10%) or a hamburger (10%).

Determine the number of portions needed for each item.

Define the Resources

Create a variable to define the number of kids invited to the party, as shown next.

Build the Flowchart

The following flowchart shows one approach to solving the problem.

To construct this flowchart, follow these steps:

Step 1: Use a standard block and the Kids variable to define the number of children invited to the party.

Step 2: Use three standard blocks to calculate the number of children who eat hamburgers, the number who eat pizza and the number who eat hot dogs for their first item. Use the RENO internal function called “in” to insert the output of the previous block into the equations.

Step 3: Use nine standard blocks to calculate the number of children who eat hamburgers, pizza or hot dogs for their second item. For example, if the first item was a hamburger, then of the 50% of the children who ate hamburgers, 30% will choose hamburgers for their second item, 60% will choose pizza and 10% will choose hotdogs.

Step 4: Use result storage blocks to calculate the total amount of each type of food consumed and normalize the results.

Simulation

You will need to perform only 1 simulation since there are no random values. The results show the following estimates:

• Hamburgers = 30
• Pizza slices = 32
• Hotdogs = 19