an open-ended problem to solve

The purpose of this project is to give you an open-ended problem to solve which requires many of the concepts we covered to date. The project requires that you synthesize the full solution, from understanding the problem to having working code. Here are some guidelines for completing the project.

1. First understand the problem. Make sure you know what the problem is asking for and what the inputs and outputs are.
2. Solve the problem yourself by hand. If you can’t understand and solve the problem, you definitely won’t be able to write a program to solve it.
3. Develop an algorithm. As you work through and solve the problem yourself, identify the steps that you are carrying out and convert them into a step-by-step procedure.
4. Write the algorithm in pseudocode or flowchart form. This step allows you to write down the explicit steps that your program should take. This form can be turned into C++ code fairly easily.
5. Test your algorithm. Hand-trace the steps using several test inputs to make sure the algorithm is producing the correct output.
6. Convert your pseudocode/flowchart to C++ code, but don’t write the whole program at once. Break up the program into small pieces that you can test independently. Functions can be used effectively for this. For example, write a function to read the input and then output it so that you know the program reads the data correctly.