Cool Summer 2012 Internship Problem Set 6

Inspired by cartoons, news and simple logics, we’ve come up with two more problems for you to solve this weekend.

Do not forget about the rules. The deadline to submit your solutions is Tuesday, May 8th, 10 am GMT. Results must be submitted here. You can solve the problem in a small team!

Feed the Deer

In a forest there is an unknown number of deer and the forester wants to count them. The forest has a fixed number of feeding places, located on known coordinates. Each feeding place has a method of detecting one or more deer that come and eat there. The forester also knows the maximum speed of a running deer and how many days a deer can survive without feeding.
You must help the forester determine the number of deer in the forest, so that he can forecast their meals correctly.

What you have to do

  • Describe the algorithms you can use and substantiate your choice.
  • Describe the UML class diagrams and design patterns applied
  • Develop a prototype using your favorite programming language

Suggestions

  • Describe how can the specifications be improved, in order to obtain better results
  • Think what happens if the device detecting the deer also detects some other animals coming by. How could the system be improved to prevent these errors?

Good News

A startup company wants to generate more page views on its news site.
The product manager came up with the idea of inserting a sidebar of clickable snippets from articles that are likely to be of interest to the reader.

What you have to do

  • Design a system that automatically generates the sidebar with news content from a database or from a directory with files.
  • Build a sidebar prototype. Design the sidebar with usability in mind (not only does it have to work, but it also has to look appealing).
  • The user should be able to change the list of articles from the sidebar to the next ones if he does not consider them helpful.

Suggestions

  • Show articles that have been proven to be popular recently.
  • Readers can rate articles which they believe to be significant.
  • Could you make the list of news behavior oriented?

Looking forward to see the good news in your solutions, next Tuesday. Have a great weekend!

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