A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S

In this maze the exits/entrances are the triple coloured bars, green, yellow and magenta. Your path is defined by the sequence of those colours; ie, if you start at the top you may only enter a cell in the order of the cyclic sequence of G-Y-M (or the reverse order if you begin from below).

The object is to complete this maze, visiting each cell at least once. While there is more than one route, the shortest routes are 31 and 34 letters. What are those routes?

Note: This has been modelled on the contribution of Chris Lusby Taylor at http://www.mathpuzzle.com/ , 26 Jul 2009.

Charlie, I fully agree with your interpretation, and am sure that is what brianjn had in mind (I later followed his link to mathpuzzle, and found the diagram, but that only showed the shape of the cells).  I did not have immediate access to a color printer, and my printer link did not even show the lines around the individual letters -- so I redrew the diagram, and then encoded the colored bars.  I noticed the triple bars at entry and exit, but just (erroneously) encoded only the first (the green one) of each set.  It would have been simpler if the puzzle just said to start at B, proceed with G-Y-M in that sequence, and end on R via a magenta bar, while visiting each letter at least once.  Congratulations on an elegant solution!

 

Posted by ed bottemiller on 2009-08-14 10:43:38