CS347 SP2005 The Plank Puzzle: Bonus Phase
Revision 1/6/2005. Note: it is the students' responsibility to check the CS347 website for
possible new revisions!
Assignment
The following plank puzzle description is cited from http://www.clickmazes.com/planks/ixplanks.htm:
"Your challenge is to find a route across a crocodile infested swamp using
just a handful of rather short planks. Fortunately the planks are light enough
to move around, and the swamp is full of old tree-stumps which will support
the planks to form temporary bridges. So by careful planning, and re-use of
planks, you might just find a route. Needless to say you can only move planks
you can physically reach, so try not to leave any too far behind. The best way
to understand the plank puzzle concept is to imagine yourself stuck in a real
swamp, with tree-stumps too far apart to jump-between, and planks too heavy to
move more than one at a time. The remaining rules get a bit fiddley, but here
they all are:
- You can pick up and carry a plank provided you have access to one end.
- You can only pick-up and carry one plank at a time.
- Planks must be supported both ends, and must be an exact fit.
- You cannot jump between stumps or planks.
- You cannot move a plank if you are already carrying one.
- Planks cannot be used diagonally, only north-south or east-west.
- Planks cannot support other planks, and cannot be stacked.
- Planks cannot bridge intermediate stumps or planks.
The
objective is to find a path from start (blue cell) to finish (green cell) with
lower cost paths being more desirable (the optimal path is the one with the
lowest path cost)."
In this bonus phase you can earn extra points by modifying the framework to facilitate the creation of new puzzles.
There are a variety of different additions you can make for varying levels of bonus credit, as specified in the
below grading section. See http://web.umr.edu/~cs347a/sp2005/planks for
framework instructions.
Note: this is an individual project; plagiarism of any type will result in a zero grade.
You need to submit a single (zip) file containing your "puzzle creator" submission on or before Tuesday
2/22/2005. This is accomplished by following the instructions at
http://web.umr.edu/~tauritzd/submission.html.
Grading
Bonus points can be earned in the form of absolute percentage increases of your overall grade as
specified here:
- Create a Qt based GUI puzzle editor (+1%) [If it's integrated into the current puzzle framework (+ another 1%)]
- Automated Tools for generating puzzles (+ up to 4%):
Use AI search
techniques, heuristics, etc. to generate new puzzles.
Your final technique
should be able to generate multiple puzzles of varying sizes.
It should
generate unique puzzles (i.e., maybe it should be pseudo-random)
Grading
will be somewhat subjective - we're looking for algorithms that can generate
complex puzzles in a moderate amount of time.
Multiple Submissions and Late Submissions
While it is hoped that all code will be submitted error-free and on time, this may not always be the case, so the
following rules apply if code is not submitted error-free or on time:
- You must make your final submission within 48 hours of the due date. Submissions which are more
than two days late will not be graded.
- If your code is submitted late, your bonus percentage will be decremented by 1% (absolute), with a lower bound
of 0%, for every day late (fractions of days are rounded up),
after two days your bonus percentage will automatically be zero.
- Resubmissions are allowed but late penalties will apply based on the last submission.