Congratulations to Robert Munyer. He solved our 2009 programming problem in 1 hour and 22 minutes beating out the other contestants. Click the story link to see the code.

Here is the Fastest Codeslinger 2009 problem and data files (these are all the files that were distributed to contestants). We will post solutions later.

Codeslinger 2009 Problem - Rats and Mazes

In our quest towards designing machines that may one day be our downfall, we attempt to mimic things in the natural world (yes, I may have watched too much Battlestar Galactica).

A virtual rat is trapped in the upper left hand corner of a maze (Position [1 1]). We've given the rat an opportunity to study the maze from above before we dropped him in.

For the first-timer, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) can be somewhat intimidating. The following recipe may help you over the hurdles. If you manage to reach GatorLUG chat, someone there should be able to help further smooth out any bumps.

Although Pidgin (formerly known as GAIM), XChat, and a host of other programs provide a similar facility, this recipe focuses on ChatZilla, a Firefox addon. You're running Firefox anyway, right?