Getting Calvin home on time: a statistics puzzle

Posted on Thu 19 July 2018 • Tagged with python, statistics, puzzles • 10 min read

I found this puzzle a while ago and couldn't get it out of my head, so I decided to write up a solution. "Calvin has to cross several signals when he walks from his home to school. Each of these signals operate independently. They alternate every 80 seconds between green light and red light. At each signal, there is a counter display that tells him how long it will be before the current signal light changes. Calvin has a magic wand which lets him turn a signal from red to green instantaneously. However, this wand comes with limited battery life, so he can use it only for a specified number of times."