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01 // PROJECT AT A GLANCE

DANTE'S STAR

C

Generating mazes, then finding the shortest way out.

Two problems in one: first producing a maze that is both random and always solvable, then solving it by finding the best path from entrance to exit. A rare advantage at this stage of the curriculum, the result draws itself: a flaw in the reasoning is visible at a glance instead of being deduced from a test message.

Procedural generation of perfect or imperfect mazes and depth-first solving, with textual output and splitting of very large grids.

PRIMARYC
DELIVERYTEAM RECORD
VERIFICATIONCriterion
SOURCEINSPECTOR READY
MEDIA ATTACHMENTS (Images, Photos, Videos)

02 // PROJECT SIGNALS

DATE:
2018
PRIMARY LANG:
C
GRADE:
B
DURATION:
2 weeks
SECONDARY:
—
STACK:
Makefile / gcc

03 // KEY OUTCOMES

  • Generation guaranteed connected and loop-free in perfect mode, deliberately degraded for imperfect mode
  • Splitting grids larger than 25 cells per side to keep memory in check
  • Two separate binaries, generator and solver, articulated around the same ASCII format

BEYOND THE BRIEF

  • Imperfect maze mode (handle_imperfect.c, imperfect_maze.c): adding cycles to the perfect maze, which makes solving markedly less trivial
  • One Criterion test suite per binary

04 // SOURCE TREE

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