Play Our Valentine's Day "Cupid Shooting Hearts" Game/Gizmo

To help you get into the Valentine's Day spirit, we've created a fun little game.

Help the mischievous cherub Cupid shoot his arrow through the passing hearts. Drag Cupid into position with your mouse, adjust the angle, and hit the shoot button. The arrow will obey Newton's Laws of Motion as it follows a parabolic path.

If everything in this game was random, the histogram would eventually be representative of the area of each type of heart since it is easier to hit a large target. In this case you would have a normal distribution.

However, things aren't always random. Factors such as where you aim, when you shoot the arrow, and the types of hearts actually falling can influence the histogram. The fact that you will have a finite number of data points can also determine the shape of the histogram.

Although the game is mostly for fun for Valentine's Day, there is actually quite a bit of math working behind the scenes, and the game offers teachers a chance to pose various math-related questions to the students.