Knossos Games

The Corn Maze Problem

A friend and I recently visited a corn maze. Although we didn’t take the most direct route, we made it out eventually! I kept careful notes detailing every turn and decision we made, but somehow my notes got disorganized. Based on the picture of the maze, can you help put the segments of our path back in the correct order?

Because it was important to differentiate between a turn in the path, a fork in the path (where you have a choice between two paths), and an intersection (where you have a choice between three paths), I came up with the following shorthand:

R = followed path that turned right

SPLIT L = path split into two paths, took path left

INT S = 4-way intersection, took path straight ahead

Illustration by Anna-Maria Crum

Path segments (remember, these are out of order!):

Entered the maze and…

1) L – SPLIT R – immediately another SPLIT R

2) INT R – L – L

3) SPLIT S – R – SPLIT R – R – L

4) R – SPLIT S – R – R – SPLIT L

5) INT L – SPLIT R – R – L

6) L – SPLIT S – R

7) SPLIT R – immediately another SPLIT L – R – R

8) INT L (think we’ve been here before) – L – R

9) go under bridge

10) L – R – SPLIT R – SPLIT S

11) SPLIT L – R – R – SPLIT L

12) L – SPLIT R – SPLIT L – SPLIT R – L

… L – L – R – R – go over bridge – R – R – L – exit!