You have quarters laid out in the following pattern on the left and you want to move quarters to form the pattern on the right.

  Q      Q Q
 Q Q    Q   Q
Q Q Q    Q Q

Before| |After

The only rule is you must slide a coin without moving any others, such that the coin's ending location touches two other quarters. This means the following moves are illegal:

 A 1     Moving C to 1    
B C D 2  Moving B to 2  
 E F 

What is the shortest solution?

(In reply to 5 move solution by Jer)

I'm not sure how to get good formatting, but this should work:

--A
-B-C
D-E-F
1-----------
---A
E-B-C
-D---F
2-----------
-E-B-C
A-D---F
3-----------
-E-B
A-D---F
-C
4-----------
-E-B
A---D-F
-C
5----------
-E-B
A---D
-C-F
------------

-Jer

Posted by Jer on 2004-03-26 14:30:15