Warning: From this page, things will get much harder. The lunchboxes will become more complicated.
But: You don’t need to understand everything immediately. Even if you don’t completely get it, please keep reading!
Looking for some other page?
As promised: If you can solve this problem, I’ll return your mathboxes.
Minion, explain the problem!
Sure. First, take a look at this lunchbox.
We learned on the last page that I can convert this lunchbox to .
Now, take a look at this lunchbox.
Each icon represents a food item.
We now combine the above two lunchboxes.
If you combine them, it’ll look like this:
Now, here’s the challenge:
This is the “very difficult question” I’ve been talking about.
If you solve this, I’ll return your mathboxes!
Hmm… I don’t know if I understood the problem.
And I have no idea how to solve it!
No problem! First, try filling each icon with a random food item.
By doing so, you’ll be able to understand the problem better.
Ok, let me try…
Here it is: I randomly filled each icon with sushi , a sandwich , or a hamburger .
Now, we’ll run the above lunchbox, and…
Ok, let’s run it!
Need a review? To solve the above lunchbox, we’ll need to use the rules from Beginner 5.
If you want to review them, press “Do a Quick Review” below.
Let’s run it!
First: Because there are multiple pairs of 1’s, we start from the leftmost pair.
Press Run . (Or press to step through manually.)
Second: We can’t start with the leftmost pair of 1’s because there’s only one item on the bottom (a sandwich ).
Therefore, we do the pair of 2’s.
Press Run :
Third: We’ll need to start with the pair of 2’s again, just like the last time.
Press Run :
So this is the final result!
Now, we want to convert this to a mathbox…
But unfortunately: I won’t be able to convert this.
Why not? Because it doesn’t follow this pattern:
There needs to be exactly one on the top-right, but that’s not the case here.
Hmm… if the top-right was a hamburger instead of a sandwich , it could have been converted to .
It was so close!
So: Because it didn’t become a lunchbox that can be converted to at the end…
Your answer was incorrect.
Hmm… sad!
Hopefully you understood what the problem is asking. So let’s state it again:
Again: The “random” lunchbox you came up with was incorrect.
Try to see if you can come up with a different one that works!
Hmm… I now understand the problem, but I don’t know how to solve it!
The villagers are so close to getting their mathboxes back, but they’re struggling. Let’s see if they can solve it on the next page!
Before you go: I’d really appreciate it if you could retweet the following tweet before closing this page.
If you have a question or a comment: Please reply to the above tweet with a screenshot, or email me at shu.chibicode@gmail.com. You can also discuss this on Hacker News.
If you’re a programmer:
To keep reading this course: Press the button below!
About me: I’m Shu Uesugi, a full-stack developer based in San Francisco Bay Area, USA.