Example 1 Solution Example 2 Solution Problems Easier Harder

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Simulation

Author: Darren Yao

Contributors: Allen Li, Siyong Huang, Juheon Rhee

Directly simulating the problem statement.

Example 1 Solution Example 2 Solution Problems Easier Harder

Resources
	IUSACO	5 - Simulation	This module is based on Chapter 5 of Darren Yao's book

Since there's no formal algorithm involved, the intent of the problem is to assess competence with one's programming language of choice and knowledge of built-in data structures. At least in USACO Bronze, when a problem statement says to find the end result of some process, or to find when something occurs, it's usually sufficient to simulate the process naively.

Example 1

Shell Game

Bronze - Easy

Focus Problem – try your best to solve this problem before continuing!

Solution

We can simulate the process. Store an array that keeps track of which shell is at which location, and Bessie's swapping can be simulated by swapping elements in the array. Then, we can count how many times Elsie guesses each shell, and the maximum points she can earn is the maximum amount of times a shell is guessed.

C++

#include <algorithm>
#include <cstdio>
#include <vector>

using std::vector;

int main() {
	freopen("shell.in", "r", stdin);

	int n;

Java

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class Shell {
	public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
		Kattio io = new Kattio("shell");

		int n = io.nextInt();

		// shellAtPos[i] stores the label of the shell located at position i

Python

read = open("shell.in")

n = int(read.readline())

# shell_at_pos[i] stores the label of the shell located at position i
# The shells can be placed arbitrarily at the start.
shell_at_pos = [i for i in range(3)]

# counter[i] stores the number of times the shell with label i was picked
counter = [0 for _ in range(3)]

Example 2

Mixing Milk

Bronze - Easy

Focus Problem – try your best to solve this problem before continuing!

Solution

We can simulate the process of pouring buckets. The amount of milk poured from bucket $i$ to bucket $j$ is the smaller of the amount of milk in bucket $i$ (which is $m_i$ ) and the remaining space in bucket $j$ (which is $c_j - m_j$ ). We can just handle all of these operations in order, using an array $c$ to store the maximum capacities of each bucket, and an array $m$ to store the current milk level in each bucket, which we update during the process. Example code is below.

C++

#include <algorithm>
#include <cstdio>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

using namespace std;

const int N = 3;  // The number of buckets (which is 3)
const int TURN_NUM = 100;

Java

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class MixMilk {
	static final int N = 3;  // The number of buckets (which is 3)
	static final int TURN_NUM = 100;

	public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
		Kattio io = new Kattio("mixmilk");

Python

N = 3  # The number of buckets (which is 3)
TURN_NUM = 100

# capacity[i] is the maximum capacity of bucket i
capacity = [0 for _ in range(N)]
# milk[i] is the current amount of milk in bucket i
milk = [0 for _ in range(N)]
with open("mixmilk.in") as read:
	for i in range(N):
		capacity[i], milk[i] = map(int, read.readline().split())

Problems

Easier

Source	Problem Name	Difficulty	Tags
Bronze	The Cow-Signal	Easy	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	Speeding Ticket	Easy	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	The Lost Cow	Easy	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	The Bovine Shuffle	Easy	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	The Bucket List	Easy	Show Tags Simulation

Harder

Source	Problem Name	Difficulty	Tags
Bronze	Measuring Traffic	Normal	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	Circular Barn	Normal	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	Block Game	Normal	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	Team Tic Tac Toe	Normal	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	Mowing the Field	Normal	Show Tags Simulation
Old Bronze	Censoring	Hard	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	Milk Measurement	Hard	Show Tags Simulation
Bronze	Stuck in a Rut	Very Hard	Show Tags Simulation

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Table of Contents

Simulation

Table of Contents

Example 1

Solution

Example 2

Solution

Problems

Easier

Harder

Module Progress:

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Table of Contents

Simulation

Table of Contents

Example 1

Solution

Example 2

Solution

Problems

Easier

Harder

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