Assignment 3

CISC 352: Artificial Intelligence
Sean Nesdoly & Mary Hoekstra
March 19th, 2017

This repository implements the algorithms required for solving the following two problems that are outlined in the assignment 3 documentation for CISC352:

1. The N-Queens puzzle is the problem of placing n chess queens on an n-by-n chessboard so that no two queens threaten each other. This problem is solved using an iterative repair algorithm where conflicts are resolved using the minimum conflicts heuristic.
2. The Alpha-Beta Pruning algorithm is a search algorithm that seeks to decrease the number of nodes that are evaluated by the minimax algorithm in its search tree. This is used in the context of a machine playing implementation of zero-sum games; the "minimax" refers to each player minimizing the maximum payoff possible for the other.

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Build Process

Compiled JAR files have been included under the root project directory for each problem. Note that Java version 1.8 was used.

If required to build a project, there are two methods that may be used:

• gradle build tool not installed: run the gradlew executable or the graddlew.bat batch file (for Windows)
• gradle build tool is installed: from the project root directory, run the gradle build command

Running the N-Queens Problem

Using the compiled JAR file:

cd path-to-CISC352-Assignment3/nqueens
java -Xmx6g -jar nqueens.jar

Using the gradle executable:

cd path-to-CISC352-Assignment3/nqueens
./gradlew -q # if gradle is NOT installed
gradle -q # if gradle is installed

Running Alpha-Beta Pruning

Using the compiled JAR file:

cd path-to-CISC352-Assignment3/alphabeta
java -jar alphabeta.jar

Using the gradle executable:

cd path-to-CISC352-Assignment3/alphabeta
./gradlew -q # if gradle is NOT installed
gradle -q # if gradle is installed

Program Input/Output

In each projects root directory there is a folder named src/. The specified input & output files are contained within this folder. Edit the files as desired, but do not move them to another directory. Both programs are coded to read from & write to the directory src/.

Here are the important components of the project structure for reference:

├── README
├── TechnicalDocument.pdf
├── alphabeta
│   ├── alphabeta.jar # JAR file
│   ├── gradlew     # Unix executable
│   ├── gradlew.bat # Windows executable
│   └── src
│       ├── alphabeta
│       │   ├── AlphaBeta.java
│       │   ├── Main.java
│       │   └── TextFile.java
│       ├── alphabeta.txt       # input file
│       └── alphabeta_out.txt   # output file
└── nqueens
    ├── nqueens.jar # JAR file
    ├── gradlew     # Unix executable
    ├── gradlew.bat # Windows executable
    └── src
        ├── java
        │   ├── Main.java
        │   ├── NQueens.java
        │   └── TextFile.java
        ├── nqueens.txt     # input file
        └── nqueens_out.txt # output file