What is a pattern?
Think about your friends. Taller friends can usually reach higher shelves than shorter friends can. That is not true every single time, but it happens often enough that you can guess it.
When two things change together like that, it is called a pattern. Football has patterns too: teams that take more shots usually score more goals. Today, you will learn how to use that pattern to make your own guesses.
A pattern is something that happens the same way, again and again, so you can guess what comes next.
Guessing with a line
Picture a chart. Shots on target go along the bottom. Goals scored go up the side. Now imagine one dot for every match a team has played.
The dots would not land just anywhere. Matches with more shots tend to have dots higher up, near more goals. That is the pattern from before, but now you can actually see it.
A computer can look at all those dots and draw ONE straight line through them. That line has a name: a guessing line. You can use it to guess how many goals a team might score, just from knowing how many shots they took.
To predict means to make a smart guess about something that hasn't happened yet, using what you already know.
Ready to draw your own guessing line? Press play below. Watch the dots, then watch the line appear.
Play the Game The Guessing Line 📏
Below are 8 real matches. Each dot shows shots on target and goals scored. Press the button and watch the computer draw a line through them all.
How to play
- Look at the dots. More shots across the bottom usually means more goals up the side.
- Press "Draw the Guessing Line 📏".
- Move the shots slider and watch the dot ride along the line to make a guess.
The real formula
Grown-ups write this guessing line as a short formula. It looks tricky, but you already know what it means.
m is how steep the line climbs. A bigger m means more goals for every extra shot. b is where the line starts, before any shots at all. Grown-ups often write this same formula a shorter way: $y = mx + b$.
- A pattern is something that happens the same way, again and again.
- When two things change together, a computer can draw ONE straight line through the dots.
- To predict means to make a smart guess using what you already know.
- A guessing line follows the formula Goals ≈ m × Shots + b.
🎮 3D Vox game: Bird Parade
Voxel birds fly past in a repeating pattern. Spot the pattern, then predict the colour of the NEXT bird, exactly like a guessing line predicts the next score!
Next: you'll kick a ball and watch it fly in a curve.