Mazes for Programmers

Intermediate

120 Lessons

35h

Certificate of Completion

Discover the world of mazes and create unique puzzles on unconventional surfaces, in various shapes, and sizes. Ignite your imagination and endless inspiration.

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Explanations

This course includes

127 Playgrounds

14 Quizzes

204 Illustrations

This course includes

127 Playgrounds

14 Quizzes

204 Illustrations

Course Overview

Mazes are everywhere. From psychology experiments involving mice to robotics demonstrations to movies, video games, books, and puzzles, we all encounter mazes at some point or other in our lives. Working with mazes is like going on a voyage of discovery where you never know quite what you’ll find when you crest the next hill. In this course, you’re going to look at ideas to inspire you and learn to generate your own mazes. After taking this course, you’ll have taken your existing knowledge of software eng...Show More

What You'll Learn

An understanding of the usefulness of mazes to generate interesting puzzles

Hands-on experience designing algorithms and programs to solve different puzzles

Familiarity with different types of mazes including grids and circular, weaving, and folding mazes

Hands-on experience creating different mazes and solving them using a variety of algorithms

Ability to traverse mazes, render mazes, and exploit well-known graph theoretic algorithms to solve underlying problems in mazes

Course Content

Our First Random Mazes

Who Should Take This Course and Why?

Getting Started Preparing the Grid The Binary Tree Algorithm Digging Deeper into the Binary Tree Algorithm The Sidewinder Algorithm Quiz Yourself on Random Mazes Algorithms Exercise: Upside-down Sidewinder

Automating and Displaying our Mazes

Introducing Our Basic Grid Implementing the Grid Class Implementing the Binary Tree Algorithm Displaying a Maze on the Console Implementing the Sidewinder Algorithm Rendering a Maze as an Image Quiz Yourself on Automating and Displaying Mazes Exercise: Interactive Fiction Display Solution: Interactive Fiction Display

Solving Mazes

Dijkstra's Algorithm Implementing Dijkstra's Algorithm Displaying the Dijkstra's Matrix Finding the Shortest Path Making Challenging Mazes Coloring Our Mazes Displaying Colored Mazes Quiz Yourself on Dijkstra's Algorithm Exercise: Coloring Cells by Shortest Distance Solution: Coloring Cells by Shortest Distance

Avoiding Bias with Random Walks

Understanding Biases The Aldous-Broder Algorithm Implementing the Aldous-Broder Algorithm Wilson's Algorithm Implementing Wilson's Algorithm Quiz Yourself on Avoiding Bias with Random Walks Exercise: Optimizing Aldous-Broder Solution: Optimizing Aldous-Broder

Adding Constraints to Random Walks

Introduction to Random Walks (the Hunt-and-Kill Algorithm)Implementing the Hunt-and-Kill algorithm Counting Dead Ends The Recursive Backtracker Algorithm Implementing the Recursive Backtracker Algorithm Quiz Yourself on Adding Constraints to Random Walks Exercise: Recursive Recursive Backtracker Solution: Recursive Recursive Backtracker

Fitting Mazes to Shapes

7 Lessons

Going in Circles

8 Lessons

Exploring Other Grids

9 Lessons

Braiding and Weaving Our Mazes

11 Lessons

Improving Our Weaving

7 Lessons

Growing With Prim's

7 Lessons

Combining, Dividing

8 Lessons

Extending Mazes into Higher Dimensions

8 Lessons

Bending and Folding Our Mazes

10 Lessons

Conclusion

2 Lessons

COURSE AUTHOR

How You'll Learn

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