Description
1. Tile Puzzle [40 points]
Recall from class that the Eight Puzzle consists of a 3 x 3 board of sliding tiles with a single empty
space. For each configuration, the only possible moves are to swap the empty tile with one of its
neighboring tiles. The goal state for the puzzle consists of tiles 1-3 in the top row, tiles 4-6 in the
middle row, and tiles 7 and 8 in the bottom row, with the empty space in the lower-right corner.
In this section, you will develop two solvers for a generalized version of the Eight Puzzle, in which
the board can have any number of rows and columns. We have suggested an approach similar to the
one used to create a Lights Out solver in Homework 2, and indeed, you may find that this pattern
can be abstracted to cover a wide range of puzzles. If you wish to use the provided GUI for testing,
described in more detail at the end of the section, then your implementation must adhere to the
recommended interface. However, this is not required, and no penalty will imposed for using a
different approach.
A natural representation for this puzzle is a two-dimensional list of integer values between 0 and r ·
c – 1 (inclusive), where r and c are the number of rows and columns in the board, respectively. In
this problem, we will adhere to the convention that the 0-tile represents the empty space.
1. [0 points] In the TilePuzzle class, write an initialization method __init__(self, board)
that stores an input board of this form described above for future use. You additionally may
wish to store the dimensions of the board as separate internal variables, as well as the location
of the empty tile.
2. [0 points] Suggested infrastructure.
In the TilePuzzle class, write a method get_board(self) that returns the internal
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representation of the board stored during initialization.
>>> p = TilePuzzle([[1, 2], [3, 0]])
>>> p.get_board()
[[1, 2], [3, 0]]
>>> p = TilePuzzle([[0, 1], [3, 2]])
>>> p.get_board()
[[0, 1], [3, 2]]
Write a top-level function create_tile_puzzle(rows, cols) that returns a new TilePuzzle
of the specified dimensions, initialized to the starting configuration. Tiles 1 through r · c – 1
should be arranged starting from the top-left corner in row-major order, and tile 0 should be
located in the lower-right corner.
>>> p = create_tile_puzzle(3, 3)
>>> p.get_board()
[[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 0]]
>>> p = create_tile_puzzle(2, 4)
>>> p.get_board()
[[1, 2, 3, 4], [5, 6, 7, 0]]
In the TilePuzzle class, write a method perform_move(self, direction) that attempts to
swap the empty tile with its neighbor in the indicated direction, where valid inputs are limited
to the strings “up”, “down”, “left”, and “right”. If the given direction is invalid, or if the
move cannot be performed, then no changes to the puzzle should be made. The method
should return a Boolean value indicating whether the move was successful.
>>> p = create_tile_puzzle(3, 3)
>>> p.perform_move(“up”)
True
>>> p.get_board()
[[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 0], [7, 8, 6]]
>>> p = create_tile_puzzle(3, 3)
>>> p.perform_move(“down”)
False
>>> p.get_board()
[[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 0]]
In the TilePuzzle class, write a method scramble(self, num_moves) which scrambles the
puzzle by calling perform_move(self, direction) the indicated number of times, each time
with a random direction. This method of scrambling guarantees that the resulting
configuration will be solvable, which may not be true if the tiles are randomly permuted.
Hint: The random module contains a function random.choice(seq) which returns a random
element from its input sequence.
In the TilePuzzle class, write a method is_solved(self) that returns whether the board is
in its starting configuration.
>>> p = TilePuzzle([[1, 2], [3, 0]]) >>> p = TilePuzzle([[0, 1], [3, 2]])
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>>> p.is_solved()
True
>>> p.is_solved()
False
In the TilePuzzle class, write a method copy(self) that returns a new TilePuzzle object
initialized with a deep copy of the current board. Changes made to the original puzzle should
not be reflected in the copy, and vice versa.
>>> p = create_tile_puzzle(3, 3)
>>> p2 = p.copy()
>>> p.get_board() == p2.get_board()
True
>>> p = create_tile_puzzle(3, 3)
>>> p2 = p.copy()
>>> p.perform_move(“left”)
>>> p.get_board() == p2.get_board()
False
In the TilePuzzle class, write a method successors(self) that yields all successors of the
puzzle as (direction, new-puzzle) tuples. The second element of each successor should be a
new TilePuzzle object whose board is the result of applying the corresponding move to the
current board. The successors may be generated in whichever order is most convenient, as
long as successors corresponding to unsuccessful moves are not included in the output.
>>> p = create_tile_puzzle(3, 3)
>>> for move, new_p in p.successors():
… print move, new_p.get_board()
…
up [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 0], [7, 8, 6]]
left [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 0, 8]]
>>> b = [[1,2,3], [4,0,5], [6,7,8]]
>>> p = TilePuzzle(b)
>>> for move, new_p in p.successors():
… print move, new_p.get_board()
…
up [[1, 0, 3], [4, 2, 5], [6, 7, 8]]
down [[1, 2, 3], [4, 7, 5], [6, 0, 8]]
left [[1, 2, 3], [0, 4, 5], [6, 7, 8]]
right [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 0], [6, 7, 8]]
3. [20 points] In the TilePuzzle class, write a method find_solutions_iddfs(self) that
yields all optimal solutions to the current board, represented as lists of moves. Valid moves
include the four strings “up”, “down”, “left”, and “right”, where each move indicates a
single swap of the empty tile with its neighbor in the indicated direction. Your solver should
be implemented using an iterative deepening depth-first search, consisting of a series of
depth-first searches limited at first to 0 moves, then 1 move, then 2 moves, and so on. You
may assume that the board is solvable. The order in which the solutions are produced is
unimportant, as long as all optimal solutions are present in the output.
Hint: This method is most easily implemented using recursion. First define a recursive
helper method iddfs_helper(self, limit, moves) that yields all solutions to the current
board of length no more than limit which are continuations of the provided move list. Your
main method will then call this helper function in a loop, increasing the depth limit by one at
each iteration, until one or more solutions have been found.
4. [20 points] In the TilePuzzle class, write a method find_solution_a_star(self) that
returns an optimal solution to the current board, represented as a list of direction strings. If
multiple optimal solutions exist, any of them may be returned. Your solver should be
implemented as an A* search using the Manhattan distance heuristic, which is reviewed
below. You may assume that the board is solvable. During your search, you should take care
not to add positions to the queue that have already been visited. It is recommended that you
use the PriorityQueue class from the Queue module.
Recall that the Manhattan distance between two locations (r_1, c_1) and (r_2, c_2) on a
board is defined to be the sum of the componentwise distances: |r_1 – r_2| + |c_1 – c_2|. The
Manhattan distance heuristic for an entire puzzle is then the sum of the Manhattan distances
between each tile and its solved location.
If you implemented the suggested infrastructure described in this section, you can play with an
interactive version of the Tile Puzzle using the provided GUI by running the following command:
python homework3_tile_puzzle_gui.py rows cols
The arguments rows and cols are positive integers designating the size of the puzzle.
In the GUI, you can use the arrow keys to perform moves on the puzzle, and can use the side menu
to scramble or solve the puzzle. The GUI is merely a wrapper around your implementations of the
>>> b = [[4,1,2], [0,5,3], [7,8,6]]
>>> p = TilePuzzle(b)
>>> solutions = p.find_solutions_iddfs()
>>> next(solutions)
[‘up’, ‘right’, ‘right’, ‘down’, ‘down’]
>>> b = [[1,2,3], [4,0,8], [7,6,5]]
>>> p = TilePuzzle(b)
>>> list(p.find_solutions_iddfs())
[[‘down’, ‘right’, ‘up’, ‘left’, ‘down’,
‘right’], [‘right’, ‘down’, ‘left’,
‘up’, ‘right’, ‘down’]]
>>> b = [[4,1,2], [0,5,3], [7,8,6]]
>>> p = TilePuzzle(b)
>>> p.find_solution_a_star()
[‘up’, ‘right’, ‘right’, ‘down’, ‘down’]
>>> b = [[1,2,3], [4,0,5], [6,7,8]]
>>> p = TilePuzzle(b)
>>> p.find_solution_a_star()
[‘right’, ‘down’, ‘left’, ‘left’, ‘up’,
‘right’, ‘down’, ‘right’, ‘up’, ‘left’,
‘left’, ‘down’, ‘right’, ‘right’]
relevant functions, and may therefore serve as a useful visual tool for debugging.
2. Grid Navigation [15 points]
In this section, you will investigate the problem of navigation on a two-dimensional grid with
obstacles. The goal is to produce the shortest path between a provided pair of points, taking care to
maneuver around the obstacles as needed. Path length is measured in Euclidean distance. Valid
directions of movement include up, down, left, right, up-left, up-right, down-left, and down-right.
Your task is to write a function find_path(start, goal, scene) which returns the shortest path
from the start point to the goal point that avoids traveling through the obstacles in the grid. For this
problem, points will be represented as two-element tuples of the form (row, column), and scenes
will be represented as two-dimensional lists of Boolean values, with False values corresponding
empty spaces and True values corresponding to obstacles. Your output should be the list of points
in the path, and should explicitly include both the start point and the goal point. Your
implementation should consist of an A* search using the straight-line Euclidean distance heuristic.
If multiple optimal solutions exist, any of them may be returned. If no optimal solutions exist, or if
the start point or goal point lies on an obstacle, you should return the sentinal value None.
>>> scene = [[False, False, False],
… [False, True , False],
… [False, False, False]]
>>> find_path((0, 0), (2, 1), scene)
[(0, 0), (1, 0), (2, 1)]
>>> scene = [[False, True, False],
… [False, True, False],
… [False, True, False]]
>>> print find_path((0, 0), (0, 2), scene)
None
Once you have implemented your solution, you can visualize the paths it produces using the
provided GUI by running the following command:
python homework3_grid_navigation_gui.py scene_path
The argument scene_path is a path to a scene file storing the layout of the target grid and
obstacles. We use the following format for textual scene representation: “.” characters correspond
to empty spaces, and “X” characters correspond to obstacles.
3. Linear Disk Movement, Revisited [15 points]
Recall the Linear Disk Movement section from Homework 2. The starting configuration of this
puzzle is a row of L cells, with disks located on cells 0 through n – 1. The goal is to move the disks to
the end of the row using a constrained set of actions. At each step, a disk can only be moved to an
adjacent empty cell, or to an empty cell two spaces away, provided another disk is located on the
intervening square.
In a variant of the problem, the disks were distinct rather than identical, and the goal state was
amended to stipulate that the final order of the disks should be the reverse of their initial order.
Implement an improved version of the solve_distinct_disks(length, n) function from
Homework 2 that uses an A* search rather than an uninformed breadth-first search to find an
optimal solution. As before, the exact solution produced is not important so long as it is of minimal
length. You should devise a heuristic which is admissible but informative enough to yield significant
improvements in performance.
4. Dominoes Game [25 points]
In this section, you will develop an AI for a game in which two players take turns placing 1 x 2
dominoes on a rectangular grid. One player must always place his dominoes vertically, and the
other must always place his dominoes horizontally. The last player who successfully places a
domino on the board wins.
As with the Tile Puzzle, an infrastructure that is compatible with the provided GUI has been
suggested. However, only the search method will be tested, so you are free to choose a different
approach if you find it more convenient to do so.
The representation used for this puzzle is a two-dimensional list of Boolean values, where True
corresponds to a filled square and False corresponds to an empty square.
1. [0 points] In the DominoesGame class, write an initialization method
__init__(self, board) that stores an input board of the form described above for future
use. You additionally may wish to store the dimensions of the board as separate internal
variables, though this is not required.
2. [0 points] Suggested infrastructure.
In the DominoesGame class, write a method get_board(self) that returns the internal
representation of the board stored during initialization.
>>> b = [[True, False], [True, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.get_board()
[[True, False], [True, False]]
Write a top-level function create_dominoes_game(rows, cols) that returns a new
DominoesGame of the specified dimensions with all squares initialized to the empty state.
>>> g = create_dominoes_game(2, 2) >>> g = create_dominoes_game(2, 3)
>>> b = [[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.get_board()
[[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> g.get_board()
[[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> g.get_board()
[[False, False, False],
[False, False, False]]
In the DominoesGame class, write a method reset(self) which resets all of the internal
board’s squares to the empty state.
>>> b = [[True, False], [True, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.get_board()
[[True, False], [True, False]]
>>> g.reset()
>>> g.get_board()
[[False, False], [False, False]]
In the DominoesGame class, write a method is_legal_move(self, row, col, vertical)
that returns a Boolean value indicating whether the given move can be played on the current
board. A legal move must place a domino fully within bounds, and may not cover squares
which have already been filled.
If the vertical parameter is True, then the current player intends to place a domino on
squares (row, col) and (row + 1, col). If the vertical parameter is False, then the
current player intends to place a domino on squares (row, col) and (row, col + 1). This
convention will be followed throughout the rest of the section.
>>> b = [[True, False], [True, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.is_legal_move(0, 0, False)
False
>>> g.is_legal_move(0, 1, True)
True
>>> g.is_legal_move(1, 1, True)
False
In the DominoesGame class, write a method legal_moves(self, vertical) which yields the
legal moves available to the current player as (row, column) tuples. The moves should be
generated in row-major order (i.e. iterating through the rows from top to bottom, and within
rows from left to right), starting from the top-left corner of the board.
>>> b = [[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.get_board()
[[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> g.reset()
>>> g.get_board()
[[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> b = [[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.is_legal_move(0, 0, True)
True
>>> g.is_legal_move(0, 0, False)
True
>>> b = [[True, False], [True, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> list(g.legal_moves(True))
[(0, 1)]
>>> list(g.legal_moves(False))
[]
In the DominoesGame class, write a method perform_move(self, row, col, vertical)
which fills the squares covered by a domino placed at the given location in the specified
orientation.
>>> g = create_dominoes_game(3, 3)
>>> g.perform_move(0, 1, True)
>>> g.get_board()
[[False, True, False],
[False, True, False],
[False, False, False]]
>>> g = create_dominoes_game(3, 3)
>>> g.perform_move(1, 0, False)
>>> g.get_board()
[[False, False, False],
[True, True, False],
[False, False, False]]
In the DominoesGame class, write a method game_over(self, vertical) that returns
whether the current player is unable to place any dominoes.
>>> b = [[True, False], [True, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.game_over(True)
False
>>> g.game_over(False)
True
In the DominoesGame class, write a method copy(self) that returns a new DominoesGame
object initialized with a deep copy of the current board. Changes made to the original puzzle
should not be reflected in the copy, and vice versa.
>>> g = create_dominoes_game(4, 4)
>>> g2 = g.copy()
>>> g.get_board() == g2.get_board()
True
>>> g = create_dominoes_game(4, 4)
>>> g2 = g.copy()
>>> g.perform_move(0, 0, True)
>>> g.get_board() == g2.get_board()
False
>>> g = create_dominoes_game(3, 3)
>>> list(g.legal_moves(True))
[(0, 0), (0, 1), (0, 2), (1, 0), (1, 1),
(1, 2)]
>>> list(g.legal_moves(False))
[(0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 0), (1, 1), (2, 0),
(2, 1)]
>>> b = [[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.game_over(True)
False
>>> g.game_over(False)
False
In the DominoesGame class, write a method successors(self, vertical) that yields all
successors of the puzzle for the current player as (move, new-game) tuples, where moves
themselves are (row, column) tuples. The second element of each successor should be a new
DominoesGame object whose board is the result of applying the corresponding move to the
current board. The successors should be generated in the same order in which moves are
produced by the legal_moves(self, vertical) method.
>>> b = [[True, False], [True, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> for m, new_g in g.successors(True):
… print m, new_g.get_board()
…
(0, 1) [[True, True], [True, True]]
Optional.
In the DominoesGame class, write a method get_random_move(self, vertical) which
returns a random legal move for the current player as a (row, column) tuple. Hint: The
random module contains a function random.choice(seq) which returns a random element
from its input sequence.
3. [25 points] In the DominoesGame class, write a method
get_best_move(self, vertical, limit) which returns a 3-element tuple containing the
best move for the current player as a (row, column) tuple, its associated value, and the
number of leaf nodes visited during the search. Recall that if the vertical parameter is True,
then the current player intends to place a domino on squares (row, col) and
(row + 1, col), and if the vertical parameter is False, then the current player intends to
place a domino on squares (row, col) and (row, col + 1). Moves should be explored rowmajor order, described in further detail above, to ensure consistency.
Your search should be a faithful implementation of the alpha-beta search given on page 170 of
the course textbook, with the restriction that you should look no further than limit moves
into the future. To evaluate a board, you should compute the number of moves available to the
current player, then subtract the number of moves available to the opponent.
>>> b = [[False] * 3 for i in range(3)]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.get_best_move(True, 1)
((0, 1), 2, 6)
>>> b = [[False] * 3 for i in range(3)]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> g.perform_move(0, 1, True)
>>> g.get_best_move(False, 1)
>>> b = [[False, False], [False, False]]
>>> g = DominoesGame(b)
>>> for m, new_g in g.successors(True):
… print m, new_g.get_board()
…
(0, 0) [[True, False], [True, False]]
(0, 1) [[False, True], [False, True]]
>>> g.get_best_move(True, 2)
((0, 1), 3, 10)
((2, 0), -3, 2)
>>> g.get_best_move(False, 2)
((2, 0), -2, 5)
If you implemented the suggested infrastructure described in this section, you can play with an
interactive version of the dominoes board game using the provided GUI by running the following
command:
python homework3_dominoes_game_gui.py rows cols
The arguments rows and cols are positive integers designating the size of the board.
In the GUI, you can click on a square to make a move, press ‘r’ to perform a random move, or press
a number between 1 and 9 to perform the best move found according to an alpha-beta search with
that limit. The GUI is merely a wrapper around your implementations of the relevant functions, and
may therefore serve as a useful visual tool for debugging.
5. Feedback [5 points]
1. [1 point] Approximately how long did you spend on this assignment?
2. [2 points] Which aspects of this assignment did you find most challenging? Were there any
significant stumbling blocks?
3. [2 points] Which aspects of this assignment did you like? Is there anything you would have
changed?