| Below we've included a brief analysis of some of the entries
submitted so far. Visualizing the results, especially those
of the competition, is a great way to find ways to improve
the algorithms being used.
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1.
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Here are some pictures that illustrate how the algorithms work
Our first example entry simply made random guesses and kept the best
for its final guess. Note on the visualization: the guesses are shown
with colored pixels on the left, and the score is shown with black and
white pixels on the right. The correct answer is at the very top on the
left, and the final guess appears just below it.
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id = 13;
runpuzzle('slvExample',id,'Example Entry','MathWorks Contest Team')
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2.
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Our next example is the first from Benno Weber's "alcohol series".
Notice that he cycles through all the colors initially. This approach is
common to just about all the solvers. He picks a color and tries to find the
column where it belongs.
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runpuzzle('slvStupid',id,'slow and stupid','Benno Weber')
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3.
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John Stroebel's approach below looks similar, but he picks a
column and finds the correct color.
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runpuzzle('slvStroebel1',id,'submission 1','John Stroebel')
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4.
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Here Stijn Helsen's code shows the benefits of placing colors using a binary
tree. He's able to nail down the position for a given color in far less time.
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runpuzzle('slvStijn1',id,'find colors+cbc with bt(5)','Stijn Helsen')
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5.
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This is our current leader (as of 5:30 PM EDT). Stijn is combining several
of the techniques described above. Notice particularly that he's getting
double usage out of the initial color sort, placing the blue peg while
searching for other colors.
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runpuzzle('slvStijn2',id,'fcol with posfind(34)','Stijn Helsen')
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What's next?
It will be interesting to see what ideas develop based on
the techniques described here. Maybe we'll see something
new at the top for our 8:00 PM EDT "Work Late Wednesday"
prize giveaway.
We'll see you in the queue -- The MATLAB Contest Team
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