Pass the Shagai

Shagai are a traditional Mongolian toy made from the ankle bones of sheep. They are used in a variety of games where the shagai are rolled like dice with four possible outcomes: horse, camel, sheep, goat.

Here students are playing a game I created called “Pass the Shagai” which is based on the classic dice game “Pig.”

While playing the game, the students kept a record of their rolls. Afterwards, they used the data collected to estimate the probability distribution for all possible shagai outcomes. They then used these probabilities to calculate possible outcomes related to traditional shagai games.