Fault Tree Poker

Are you looking to learn about logic and fault trees but hate the idea of having to read a grueling technical textbook about them?

Are you more inclined to spend time playing games with your friends and classmates than doing mundane reliability and risk analysis homework?

If your answer is yes to either of the above questions, then Fault Tree Poker may be the game for you!

Fault Tree Poker is a competitive card game designed to instill an understanding of how to work with fault trees within the context of engineering analysis and design. Much like standard 5-card draw and 7-card stud, Fault Tree Poker is all about playing a hand that trumps the other players. Each player is dealt five (or seven) cards - three (or four) of which are basic events and two (or three) of which are logic cards. Players use these cards to construct a system with the least chance of failure. But beware - sometimes a player may induce a failure in your system by playing an Incident card. In the end, the player whose cards produce the most reliable system wins.

Through play, players of Fault Tree Poker will be required to construct simple fault trees, calculate failure probabilities, understand the impact of incidents on system performance, and learn fault tree analysis terminology.

Fault Tree Poker is a great supplement to classroom education and professional training courses in any of the following subjects:
Reliability engineering and analysisQuality managementOperations researchEngineering designRisk managementSecurity and vulnerability analysisSafety engineering
All proceeds from the sale of this game will be used to support further development and prototyping of purposeful games for risk analysis education and research or to purchase copies for classroom use.

Game Design is by Professor Will McGill @ Penn State College of IST.

For more information on the Fault Tree Poker game, view the slideshow.