Problem Statement

     The Iditarod is a dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome that takes many days. We want to take a list of the times when the competitors crossed the finish line and convert that into the average number of minutes to complete the race.

The race starts on day 1 at 8:00 AM. We are given a list of finish times as a String[], where each finish time is formatted as 

hh:mm xM, DAY n

where hh is exactly 2 digits giving the hour, mm is exactly 2 digits giving the minute, x is either 'A' or 'P', and n is a positive integer less than 100 with no leading zeros. So each string has exactly 15 or 16 characters (depending on whether n is less than 10). 

Create a class Iditarod containing method avgMinutes that is given a String[], times, and that returns the average number of minutes taken by the competitors to complete the race. Round the returned value to the nearest minute, with .5 rounding up.
 

Problem Statement

     A quilt is made by sewing square patches of different colors together in a pattern. We are using a pattern that says to start with one patch, and then add patches starting with the patch above it and continuing by spiraling outward counterclockwise until we have the desired size. The picture below shows the order of the patches (a then b then c etc.) in crafting a quilt whose length(i.e. height) is 4 and whose width is 3.

          lkj

          cbi

          dah

          efg                           

Define the neighbors of a newly added patch to be all the previous patches that touch the new patch (including those that just touch diagonally at a corner). The rules for choosing the color of the newly added patch are 

1) choose a color that minimizes the number of neighbors of the same color

2) choose a color that has been used least often by previous patches

3) choose the earliest(lowest index) color in the colorList

Rule 2 is applied only to decide among colors that are tied after rule 1 has been applied. Rule 3 is applied only to decide among colors that are tied after the first two rules have been applied. 

Create a class Quilting that contains a method lastPatch that returns the color of the last patch added to the quilt. Its inputs are an int length and an int width (the two dimensions of the finished quilt), and a String[] colorList giving the available colors. length minus width will be 0 or 1, so it will always be possible to produce a quilt of the given size.