On the Subject of Currents
Row, row, row your boats, gently down the tower?
This module consists of a screen and 6 interactable buttons. The screen will display four colored numbers all starting with random values between 0 and 9. There is a submit and clear button (C) at the top, and then 4 colored buttons matching the colored numbers on the screen. These are labeled “U”, “R”, “D”, and “L”.
Introduction
- In order to solve this module, you will be tracking the positions of four colored boats as they travel down a tower.
- The tower consists of 3 floors, each containing a system of currents leading to a drain. For simplicity, the floors are represented as 5×5 grids with the currents represented by arrows.
- When a boat enters a space, it will follow the arrows, until it reaches a drain, and then it will fall to the next floor, and continue until it exits the third floor of the tower at the bottom.
- The solution to the module is the number of times each colored boat makes its respective move. To easily remember the moves you must track for each boat, they are printed on the buttons. (Red = Up, Green = Right, Blue = Down, and Yellow = Left)
- Use the colored buttons to change the values on the screen so they match the correct values for each boat, and then press the submit button. If you submit the incorrect answer for any of the four boat values you will get a strike. The module does not tell you which boat was wrong.
- You can also press the clear button (C) to reset all the counts to their starting values.
Step 1: Setup the tower
- There are 3 floors in the tower. In order to determine the order of the floors, locate the floors in the table below, and use the edgework and the initial values on the screen to calculate their priority value (PV). The floors have a priority order of A->B->C which means if multiple floors have the same PV then they will stay in the order they are in this list. (Ex. APV = 21 BPV = 19 CPV = 21, B->A->C)
- Once you find the order, these floors will be stacked with highest PV on bottom, and lowest PV on top.
- Next, rotate the middle floor clockwise 90 degrees, and the bottom floor counterclockwise 90 degrees. The currents rotate with the floor so be careful! (ex. an up current becomes a right current if rotated clockwise)
- Now you’re ready to place the boats!