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Printable student investigation and teacher guide
Racket Court Simulator Worksheet
Run a fair facility experiment, calculate court-hour economics, diagnose the operating constraint, and defend a pricing, staffing, maintenance, membership, or expansion decision with connected evidence.
1. Frame one facility decision
Write a question that connects one controllable input to several results. For example: Will a modest increase in the base court rate improve contribution per court hour and monthly profit without causing a large decline in utilization, satisfaction, or memberships?
My investigation question:
Why this decision matters:
Choose one main decision to test:
2. Plan a controlled baseline, test, and repeat
Keep the facility model, city, challenge level, starting court mix, and comparison period stable. Record a baseline before changing one main decision. Avoid changing price, staff, promotion, and equipment at once because the result would not show which lever caused the difference.
Prediction: If I change __________ from __________ to __________, then __________ will change because:
Guardrail: I will reject or revise the change even if profit rises when this service, condition, staffing, satisfaction, reputation, or cash result becomes unacceptable:
3. Verify the court-hour economics
Use figures from the same day or month and label every unit. The simulator’s court-hour figure refers to booked operating capacity; it is different from the number of customers when multiple people share a court.
Reasonableness check: Are the available and booked hours from the same period? ☐ Yes ☐ No. Is booked capacity less than or equal to available capacity? ☐ Yes ☐ No.
4. Record connected evidence
Capture each run at the same stopping point. Repeat the test if an event or demand shock makes the first comparison hard to interpret. A repeat checks consistency; it should not be used to hide an inconvenient result.
| Run | Main setting | Utilization | Revenue / hour | Lost bookings | Members | Service capacity | Condition | Satisfaction | Profit | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | ||||||||||
| Test | ||||||||||
| Repeat |
5. Diagnose before recommending
Choose the pattern best supported by the dashboard, then explain it with at least two measures.
My diagnosis and evidence:
Rival explanation: What else—random events, city demand, timing, or an uncontrolled change—could explain the result?
6. Write an evidence-bounded recommendation
Use this structure: claim → evidence → tradeoff → next test → stop rule. If recommending new courts, show repeated lost demand, positive contribution, healthy service and condition, and enough cash. If any one of those is missing, recommend a smaller reversible improvement first.
Claim:
Two supporting measures with units:
Tradeoff or limitation:
Next controlled test and stop rule:
Teacher guide: a 50-minute investigation
- Minutes 0–7: Introduce capacity, utilization, contribution, and the rule that busy courts do not necessarily mean profitable courts.
- Minutes 7–12: Give all teams the same facility model, city, challenge, and question. Require an individual prediction before discussion.
- Minutes 12–25: Run the shared baseline and one controlled change. Stop at matching dates and record the full evidence row.
- Minutes 25–34: Verify utilization and court-hour economics. Audit controls and repeat when an event materially disrupts one run.
- Minutes 34–44: Diagnose the constraint and write the evidence-bounded recommendation. Teams may disagree when they weight risk differently.
- Minutes 44–50: Compare claims, then collect an individual exit response naming one measure, one limitation, and one next test.
Suggested teacher answers and look-fors
- A fair comparison changes one main lever, uses the same facility context and stopping point, and reports disruptions rather than concealing them.
- High utilization can coexist with weak profit when rates or contribution are low, or when payroll, rent, maintenance, fees, and marketing absorb revenue.
- Lost bookings do not prove that more courts are needed. Weak service capacity, scheduling, outages, or concentrated peak demand may be the actual constraint.
- A strong expansion answer includes repeated demand, positive contribution, healthy operating guardrails, cash reserves, a downside case, and a stop rule.
- A strong recommendation stays within the model: “test again under comparable conditions” is more defensible than “this will work in every real market.”
12-point rubric
| Criterion | 3 points | 2 points | 1 point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Experiment design | One clear lever, matched controls, prediction, and guardrail | Mostly controlled with a minor gap | Multiple changes or unclear comparison |
| Calculations | Correct method, values, and units | Sound method with a small error | Unsupported or mismatched-period figures |
| Diagnosis | Connects at least two outcomes and a rival explanation | Uses two outcomes with limited interpretation | Relies on one isolated score |
| Recommendation | Evidence, tradeoff, next test, and stop rule | Supported claim with one missing boundary | Broad claim without adequate evidence |
Responsible-use and real-world boundaries
This activity uses fictional demand, finances, customers, and workers. Do not enter personal, confidential, student, employee, or real-customer information. Do not use simulated scores for employment, lending, insurance, real-estate, safety, accessibility, or other high-impact decisions.
A real sports facility must independently investigate building and fire codes, accessibility, equipment safety, sanitation, safeguarding, insurance, employment standards, permits, taxes, financing, consumer rules, and local demand. Promotion results in the simulator do not justify misleading claims, unsolicited outreach, paid traffic, bots, click exchanges, or any attempt to create invalid advertising activity.
Racket Court Simulator worksheet FAQ
What should students change in the Racket Court Simulator experiment?
Students should change one main decision, such as the base court rate, membership plan, staffing level, promotion, or equipment refresh level, while holding the facility model, city, court mix, and other important settings stable.
Is court utilization the same as profitability?
No. Utilization describes how much available court capacity is booked. Profit also depends on realized rates, memberships, programs, payroll, rent, utilities, payment fees, maintenance, and marketing costs.
When should a student recommend adding courts?
Recommend expansion only after repeated comparable results show profitable lost demand, positive court-hour contribution, healthy service capacity and equipment condition, and enough cash for the investment and larger cost base.
How long does the racket court worksheet activity take?
A baseline-and-test investigation takes about 30 minutes. A 50-minute lesson allows a repeated run, court-hour calculations, an expansion decision, peer comparison, and an individual exit claim.
Can this simulation predict whether a real sports facility will succeed?
No. It is a simplified learning model and omits many local safety, accessibility, safeguarding, insurance, tax, employment, financing, building, and market requirements. Real decisions require current local research and qualified advice.