Questions tagged [optimization]
A puzzle where you have to optimize a certain objective function (maximize profit, minimize cost). There should ideally be a provable best answer, to avoid making the puzzle into an [open-ended] game.
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Is there a move-efficient way to rotate the center pieces on the Octo-Star?
I'm looking for a more efficient algorithm to rotate the center column of the Octo-Star puzzle 45 degrees.
The situation below occurs when four properly-oriented edges are next to each other, ...
user20
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Qubes: Oh, For the Love Of
TL;DR: This is a mixture between a tribute/spin-off puzzle and an attempt at a new puzzle type, greatly inspired by the notorious arcade game, Q*bert, published originally by Gottlieb Amusement Games. ...
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Doubling the cube with rational Meccano strips
In three monographs published in 2006, 2008 and 2014 Gerard 't Hooft considered "Meccano mathematics": how to construct specified distances and regular polygons by a rigid system of ideal ...
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What's the best path through a garden that maximises the ground you can reach but minimises the steps taken?
I'm messing around with this toy problem I came up with.
Say you have a yard that's 16 x 16 feet. Each square foot of the grid can either be a paving square for the path or a soil square for plants. A ...
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Longest Fibonacci word
Fibonacci words are defined as $F_0 = a, F_1 = b, F_{n+2} = F_nF_{n+1}$ where $a, b$ are letters. How can you find the longest Fibonacci sub-word in a given string?
Try to solve it in linear time ($O(...
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Mr. Bean's Ridiculous Way to Work
If you saw Mr. Bean as a kid, or ever, you know how crazy and unbelievable he is. In this scenario, Mr. Bean lives in the bottom left house and works for the school at the left, but he always takes ...
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Identical cubes in a sphere
Suppose that you have a sphere of radius 10cm. At most how many cubes of side 1cm can you fit in the sphere such that:
A cube can touch another cube (share a face, an edge or a point) but cannot ...
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Ma Drasi and her kitchen in need of paralyzation
I visited Ma Drasi's kitchen today, and it was a hot mess, both temperamental and situation-wise. The rooks were rattling, cooks were crying, snooks were shattering, and crooks were flying and defying!...
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Finding the 9 chapters
Suppose that you have a book of 1000 pages.
You know the book has 10 chapters and know each chapters has at least 10 pages, i.e., as chapter 1 starts at page 1, chapter 2 can only start at the page 11 ...
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How many uncoordinated cubers does it take to solve a Rubik's cube with multiple solutions?
Inspired by Rubik's cubes with multiple sets of colors or stickers. Suppose there's a Rubik's cube with multiple solutions (represented by multiple sets of colors) made with special paint that reflect ...
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How to match pairs on raw tables?
The idea for the puzzle came from working with test score tables. In this case, the raw tables indicate an internal identifier that differs from user_id. To match, you have to download solutions and ...
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