Bean Machine Simulation

I could not find a solution from my book's website (student-level access) but I feel that I am missing something that I'm supposed to learn from this exercise.

Instructions: Balls are dropped from the opening of the board. Every time a ball hits a nail, it has a 50% chance of falling to the left or to the right. The piles of balls are accumulated in the slots at the bottom of the board.

Book's example:

Enter the number of balls to drop: 5
Enter the number of slots in the bean machine: 7

LRLRLRR

RRLLLRR

LLRLLRR

RRLLLLL

LRLRRLR

0
0
000


My attempt:

`import java.util.*;

public class BeanMachine {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);

System.out.print("Enter number of balls to drop: ");
int numberOfBalls = input.nextInt();
System.out.print("Enter the number of slots in the bean machine: ");
int numberOfSlots = input.nextInt();

//Simulate drops
int[] slots = new int[numberOfSlots];
for (int i = 0; i 0; i--) {
for (int j = 0; j = i) {
System.out.print("0");
}
else {
System.out.print(" ");
}
}
System.out.println();
}
}

public static void simulateDrop(int[] slots) {
StringBuilder path = new StringBuilder(slots.length);
int slotIndex = 0;
int numberOfNails = slots.length - 1;
for (int i = 0; i

Java has good support for OOP techniques - Using these will allow you to create a more elegant solution. Your code could be refactored with the correct use of these techniques to produce something of the form:

PegMachine sampleTest = PegMachine(500,100);
sampleTest.histogram;

This approach hides the complexities of the program and allows you to conduct tests by simply creating a PegMachine specifying the number of pegs and balls for each sample.

I noticed Aron_dc pointed out the slotIndex variable in your simulateDrop method is never used - This can be removed as it does not contribute anything to your program.

Out of curiosity I conducted a larger sample using your code to see if it produced the correct normal-distribution curve. The results were as expected; confirming your codes correctness.

Besides suggesting the use of object orientation your code seems well written and correct.

StackExchange Code Review Q#101681, answer score: 3