On the Subject of Mister Softee

If you have trouble driving, blame it on the rocky road.

• You are getting ready to drive an ice cream truck around town, and you know which children will be waiting for you to pass them, and what they will order.
• Press one of the 9 buttons with an ice cream treat on it to increment its count by 1. Press the red button to clear all input, and the submit button to place the order.
• Calculate the route to be taken to find the minimum number of each item to order such that every customer is satisfied. Ordering too little of any item will result in some harsh words from a protective parent and strike.
• Ordering too much of any item will not strike the module. However, each extraneous item will delay the module’s solve by two minutes. During this time, the extra ice cream will melt. The module will flip over, revealing a lever and an indicator the color of which corresponds to how much the treats have melted.
• Hold down the lever to keep the freezer on, and prevent the ice cream from melting. When the indicator fully turns red, the ice cream will have melted, and the module will strike. The timer, however, will continue. When the timer reaches zero, the module will flip back over and solve, regardless of if the treats have melted.

Ice Cream Preferences:

For each child, if a treat is in a column whose head cell contains a character in the serial number, that treat is added to their “preference list”. Items farther to the left are preferred more. The SpongeBob Bar is at the bottom of every child’s preference list, and is always on the module.

	5 9 N A U	1 3 F S L	6 4 B R O	Ø 2 Q X K	7 8 H E M
Alyssa	Strawberry Shortcake	Push-Up Pop	Creamsicle	Screw Ball	Snow Cone
Bobby	Snow Cone	Fudge Pop	Ice Cream Sandwich	Choco Taco	Chipwich
Clarissa	Ice Cream Sandwich	Chocolate Eclair	Fudge Pop	Chipwich	King Cone
David	King Cone	Creamsicle	Chocolate Eclair	Snow Cone	Choco Taco

Ellie	Firecracker	Chipwich	Banana Fudge Bomb	Choco Taco	Creamsicle
Felix	Creamsicle	Strawberry Shortcake	Push-Up Pop	Firecracker	Screw Ball
George	Choco Taco	Ice Cream Sandwich	Chipwich	King Cone	Strawberry Shortcake
Hunter	Banana Fudge Bomb	Screw Ball	Firecracker	Creamsicle	Drumstick
Isabella	Chocolate Eclair	King Cone	Screw Ball	Banana Fudge Bomb	Fudge Pop
Jamie	King Cone	Firecracker	Drumstick	Ice Cream Sandwich	Push-Up Pop
Kyle	Screw Ball	Choco Taco	Snow Cone	Drumstick	Ice Cream Sandwich
Lily	Push-Up Pop	Banana Fudge Bomb	Drumstick	Strawberry Shortcake	Snow Cone
Mikey	Chipwich	Drumstick	Choco Taco	Push-Up Pop	Banana Fudge Bomb
Noelle	Drumstick	Snow Cone	Strawberry Shortcake	Chipwich	Firecracker

Calculating the Route:

• Starting at the first character of the serial number, and looping around, converting via A1Z26 if necessary, turn each character into a direction using the diagram below. This will give a string of directions to follow when an intersection is reached. If a direction cannot be traversed in the intersection, go clockwise until a valid direction can be used. The truck cannot make a U-turn.

	% 3 = 1
% 3 = 0		% 3 = 2

• Start at the X which matches the position of the SpongeBob Bar on the module, facing north if the serial number contains a vowel and south otherwise. Travel down one street before using the directions from the serial number.
• For every street on the route, each child whose first letter is directly adjacent to the street orders from the truck. The first time a child orders, they order the item at the top of their preference list, the next one down the second time, etc. Once a child reaches the bottom of their list, they will only order SpongeBob Bars. If a child tries to order an item not present on the module, they move on to the next item in their preference list.
• The route ends after a street has been driven down that had been visited before.

E

I

C

E

E

I

C

E

X

X

X

M

B

H

A

M

B

A

M

B

X

X

X

N

K

N

K

K

G

F

N

K

G

X

X

X

J

L

D

J

J

L

D

L

Choco Taco	Strawberry Shortcake	Snow Cone	Firecracker	Screw Ball
Chipwich	King Cone	Ice Cream Sandwich	Push-Up Pop	Drumstick
Banana Fudge Bomb	Creamsicle	Chocolate Eclair	Fudge Pop	SpongeBob Bar

> be a new yorker
> buy out a whole block so your fat child can get more ice cream