It's all a function of horsepower (A3)

• Due Friday by 11:59pm
• Points 100

The Project

Build a program that simulates a horse race. You will have a track of 15 units long, and five horses. On each turn, each horse will 'flip a coin' (Right, I don't know how horses flip coins either, but go with me on this.) Half the time, the horse will move forward one unit, and half the time it will stay in the same place. On each turn, you will see the track with the positions of the five horses, and dots for all the other positions. The race ends when one of the horses passes the finish line.

In this case we will do automated testing against your program. In order to do this you will prompt (ask for input) for a random seed and use it to seed your random number generator. This will allow you to test your program against several seeds. And we will test your program with a series of these random seeds. And this will not be your entire grade, but your ability to pass these tests is a part of your grade. This is a common industry practice and one we will try to introduce you.

Note that you will not need the automation feature nor a GUI. This just gives you an idea of the race concept. Here is sample output of the program (Your output should match this format exactly for the best possible grade): Please enter a random seed: 700 ..... .1.. .2 3. 4. ........ 2 .3. .4 .1. ...2 .3. .4 ..1. ....2 .3 .4 ..1. ....2 4. .... 1 .2 3 Horse 3 wins! Algorithm As always, begin with an algorithm in markdown this time. This document should begin by describing the main purpose of the program using the Goals - Input - Output - Steps technique we've been using. For each function you have described in the main program, you must go through the same process. Remember that your algorithm should be complete enough that by the time you are ready to start writing code, you pretty much know what you are going to do. You should get mostly through the algorithm step together in the recitation center, but definitely try to write this on your own as well. Your algorithm file should be named algorithm.md. The code Once you have a solid algorithm plan, please write the code in C++. It should be a reasonably straightforward process to convert each step of your algorithm to a line or two of C++ code. It's absolutely likely that you will have to look up a few concepts. Your code should compile with g++ on tesla. If you know how to use make and git, these are extremely helpful tools. Tips and Strategies Central data structure - The key to this program is determining a central data structure that contains the main information you'll need. Generally beginners make this much too complicated. I think an array of five integers is the cleanest solution. Think about this before you do anything else. Use functions - This code is too long to be done in a main function. You'll need to determine which functions you need and what they should do. No objects yet - We will re-write this program using object-oriented syntax in the next exercise. For now, you will write it in a procedural style. You can use any pre-build objects in base C++, but don't build custom objects yet. We will compile with C++ 98 by default, so no vectors etc. This is however, something that you can explore as a potential blackbelt is implementing it in a more recent c++ version and explaining the differences. Random numbers - You will need a random number. You might need to look up how this is done in C++. it is not the same way you might have done in another language. Random seeding If you always get the same response, you may need to look into something called 'seeding the random number generator.' It is not difficult, but you need to do it to get truly unique results. . stringstream - There will be some string manipulation in this project. The stringstream object might be very useful for this particular challenge Globals You may use global constants (My solution used two.) No other global variables are required, but for simplicity you may create a global array for the main data element