Microbot

https://microbot.mzhao.dev/

GitHub

Microbot is a finite-state machine turtle programming game. Given a map, the goal is to define a state transition mapping such that the microbot, following the mapping, will reach all open squares regardless of its starting position.

This project was developed to help students in a high school computer science class test their solutions to a homework assignment.

Instructions

The state of a bot consists of:

• An integer value from 0-255 (8 bits of storage).
• The presence or absence of walls in its four adjacent cells (north, east, west, south).

Mappings should be formatted:

A BBBB -> C D

This means: “A bot with state A BBBB should move in direction C and update its integer value to D.”

• A is an integer from 0-255.
• BBBB is a 4-character string that represents the presence of walls (N, E, W, S) or open spaces.
  • N, E, W, or S means there is a wall to the north, east, west, or south respectively.
  • * acts as a wildcard (matches both wall and empty space).
  • Any other non-whitespace character represents an empty cell.
  • The characters must always be written in NEWS order.
• C is the direction the bot should move (N, W, E, S) or X to indicate no movement. Moving into a wall is an error.
• D is the new integer value to store. (It replaces the previous value.)

No two rules should cover the same integer + wall combination.

The bot always starts with integer value 0 stored.

Examples:

0 **** -> E 0 This rule makes the bot move east until it “crashes” into a wall.

0 NEW_ -> S 1 If there are walls to the north, east, and west, and there is an empty cell to the south, this rule makes the bot move south and store the integer 1