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 re: 3 move solution, sorry Carlos by Hugo)

In addition, Carlos' solution seems to require the movement of two coins at once (B and E in step 2, D and F in step 3).

Good catch, Hugo.  You were Bourne to do this.

Posted by Mindy Rodriguez on 2005-11-27 13:14:11