Problem Solving Simulation

Problem Solving Simulation

Tina Boutin

BEH/225

March 09, 2016

Rosa Guevara Grindel

Problem Solving Simulation

The instructions for this simulation were to get a dog, a cat, and a mouse across the river. The man couldn’t leave the dog with the cat because the dog would eat the cat, but at the same time, the man couldn’t leave the cat with the mouse because the cat would eat the mouse.

My first attempt at solving this problem was to take the mouse over first, completely forgetting that the dog would eat the cat, which it did. I thought for a minute on what approach would work the best and keep all the animals alive. My second attempt, which worked and took less than a minute, was to take the cat over first, leave it there and go back for the mouse. I dropped the mouse off, took the cat back across the river, dropped it off, and picked up the dog. After dropping off the dog I went back for the cat, therefore keeping all three animals alive in the process.

In chapter 8 we studied mechanical solutions; a trial and error strategy, solutions by understanding; having a deeper understanding of the situation, general solutions; where the requirements are stated but not enough information is provided, functional solutions; a detailed, practical, workable solution, random search; trying different approaches to find a solution, Heuristic; and technique that aids in solving a problem by limiting the number of possible solutions, insight; a mental reorganization of a problem that makes the solution obvious, and algorithm; a learned set of rules which always leads to a correct solution.

Of all of these solutions stated, I believe I tried mechanical the first time without a positive outcome, the dog ate the cat. Algorithm wouldn’t have worked for this problem because not enough information was provided in the example given. Having a deeper understanding of the problem was utilized in order to come to the right conclusion for the problem. I didn’t incorporate...