Minimum Bucket and Car Battery Problems
Name
Minimum Bucket and Car Battery Problems.pdf
Size
515.51 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
96ea5457b566c3c1891bcc986c0b68eb
Author(s)
Feng, Raymond
Date Issued
June 11, 2024
Journal
The College Mathematics Journal
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Citation
Feng, R. (2025). Minimum Bucket and Car Battery Problems. The College Mathematics Journal, 56(4), 309–315.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
A solar car needs 5 fully charged batteries to run, and it depletes those batteries in 5 hours. The batteries are rechargeable, and solar panels on the car are able to charge 3 batteries simultaneously. It takes 3 hours for the solar panels to finish charging 3 batteries. Furthermore, batteries cannot be charging and in use at the same time. If the car always starts running as soon as 5 full batteries are available, and the solar panels can only operate if 3 empty batteries are available, how many batteries are needed so that the car can eventually run without stopping? We investigate this resource optimization problem and its different variations.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/07468342.2024.2357989
