A System for Simulating and Displaying Magic Game in Cat's Cradle and a Characterization Method of Its String State

Rahmat Budiarto¹, Masashi Yamada¹, Hirohisa Seki¹, Ken-ichi Itoh², Tsuyoshi Miyazaki³ and Hidenori Itoh¹

¹Department of AI and Computer Science, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466, Japan
²NTT Communication Science Laboratory, 1-2356 Take, Yokosuka, Kanagawa 238-03, Japan
³NEC Corporation, 5-7-1 Shiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-01, Japan

(Received May 13, 1996; Accepted January 9, 1997)

Keywords: String Figures, Knot Theory, Topology

Abstract. A cat's cradle system is reviewed and expanded. The system automatically generates cat's cradle patterns in two-dimensions. The present system can deal with the magic game in cat's cradle which utilizes more than two loops of string. Using polynomials, the topological characteristics of the generated patterns are examined. The paper shows that finger actions in cat's cradle pattern construction correspond to a polynomial transformation.