🏝️ Algorithm Island

Recursion, maps, and clever shortcuts

👶 12–16 yrs 🗓️ ~12-week path 🚀 Self-paced · start anytime

What you’ll do 🌈

An expedition for ages 12–16 ready to think in recursive steps, maps, and tradeoffs. Campers learn strategies that scale — and when a clever shortcut can still be wrong.

RecursionGraphs as mapsGreedy choicesDivide & conquer

Adventure log 🧭

0 of 18 activities & labs done

🎮 12 activities · 🧪 6 labs

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🎬 Showcase project

Island Rescue Planner

A grid island where a recursive explorer and a pathfinder plan a rescue — then a greedy radio picks who to help first.

Build a rescue planner: recurse through a maze-like grid, find a path from base to beacon, and use a greedy rule to order stranded campers by urgency.

Must include

✅A recursive function with a clear base case
✅A grid (graph-as-map) and a path from start to goal
✅A greedy choice that you can explain, including a case where it might be imperfect
✅A printed rescue plan a teammate could follow

Stretch goals

🌟Show a dead-end the recursion backed out of
🌟Compare greedy order vs another order
🌟Count how many cells the search visited

RecursionGraphs as mapsGreedy choicesDivide & conquer

🎤 Show it off: Narrate the base case first, then the path, then the greedy lineup — three ideas, one island story.

Ready to start?

Take the skill check and enroll in this course.

Enroll now →