HW#1 --- last modified February 07 2019 04:20:29..

Solution set.

Due date: Sep 15

Files to be submitted:
  Hw1.zip

Purpose: To gain experience with the A* algorithm by making an agent capable of tracking a target.

Related Course Outcomes:

The main course outcomes covered by this assignment are:

LO1 -- By code or by hand find solution nodes in a state space using the A* algorithm.

Specification:

For this homework, you will build a food finding agent in python that uses the A* algorithm. Your python code should conform to the Pep8 coding guidelines and should work if Python 2.7.* is being used. You can work in teams of up to three people. Your program will be run from the command line with a line like:

python food_agent.py file_name heuristic

Here file_name is the name of a file which contains a maze drawn using ASCII character graphics; heuristic is one of the words manhattan, euclidean, or made_up. Each line of the maze will be drawn using one of the characters @ - representing the agent, . - representing an empty square, # - representing a wall, or % representing a bowl of Ramen. Lines are distinguished from each other by a single newline character (not CRLF). The maze will contain at most one @ and at most one % and your agent's goal is to come up with a sequence of steps from the agent location to the Ramen location that only traverses empty squares. In one step, the agent is allowed to move up, down, left, or right and can only move into an empty square. After moving, the square the agent was in before becomes unoccupied and the one moved to becomes occupied. As an example, an initial board might look like:

.#
#.%#

Step 1:
.@.#
#.%#

Step 2:
..@#
#.%#

Step 3:
...#
#.@#
Problem Solved! I had some noodles!

Please be sure to add the words "Initial", "Step 1", etc in what you draw. Be aware your program will be tested on boards which are not solvable such as:

@#%

as well as board such as:

.......
.#####.
.#.....
.#.###.
.#.@.#%
.###.##
......#

The teams with the best made_up function on the sequence of tests used for your homework will receive 1 bonus point. That completes the description the homework. Good Luck!

Point Breakdown