It's the end of the semester, so my students are pretty burnt out, and a bit of sugar might go a long way (plus, evaluations are around the corner ;-). I'm envisioning a tactile class where students would carry out the selection sort algorithm to sort an array of candy bars by length (or height, or size), by physically swapping candy bars. I would also have them write down the number of comparisons required, to get a better understanding of the time complexity. Ideally, every student (or pair) would get 4 pieces of candy.
Can anyone suggest candy that naturally comes packaged into 4 or more different sizes?
All I could think of is how Hershey bars can be broken along natural dividing lines into different numbers of squares, and how Toblerone bars also have natural break points. But both are chocolate and might melt. I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not much of an expert on candy bar types.