A programmable robotic mouse is placed at an intersection on a square grid, the borders of which are extendable as needed.

From its initial location the mouse moves one cell forward. It turns right with its next move incrementing by 1. This incremental process continues up to a certain constraint whereby the mouse resumes the process with a move of one space until that constraint is met again; continue this process until you either return to your starting position or you evidently will never return. What generalisations can be made about how variations of the value of the constraint affect the path forced upon the mouse?

M

Note:It will be necessary to test a range of constraining values.

(In reply to re: No Subject by brianjn)

Hi brianjn,

I guess I was giving the robotic mouse the characteristics of a live mouse (like anthropomorphism, but for a mouse... mouse-o-morphism?).  And a live mouse would either be a he or a she.  There are some schools of thought that address the "what gender do you give something when you are talking about a hypothetical/example subject?" issue with "give the subject the same gender as the speaker to promote equal usage of he and she."  So, since I am a "she" I referred to my mouse as a she.

I didn't have an issue with my interpretation of the definition of the constraint.  I was just trying to say that it could be interpreted loosely such that my investigation of a constant constraint would not have covered all cases.  If instead of "constraint" the phrase "fixed limit" were used, I would not have supposed that anything other than a constant constraint was allowable.

I guess to me, constraint is similar to "condition" and the condition might be something like:

S=0
C=1

Do
     Do
          S=S+1
          Move forward S steps
          Turn right
     While S!=C
     C=C+1
While (mouse has not returned to start spot)

Here the constraint of C changes with each iteration, with the condition that it follows the whole numbers.  Just because it changes each time doesn't mean it's not still a constraint.  So I didn't want to assume you only meant constant constraints.  I wasn't trying to overcomplicate the problem, I was just trying to give a discalimer that my analysis might have been undercomplicating it.

That's all =)

Edited on January 20, 2008, 11:45 pm

Edited on January 21, 2008, 11:43 am

Posted by nikki on 2008-01-20 23:39:26