This option follows up on the 4-page worksheet from the beginning of the quarter.

In this option, your team will select a wicked problem, formulate it according to the methodology of Assignments 2 and 3, and study the properties of the resulting state space, including the design and testing of one or more appropriate heuristic functions. Background reading for this includes the previous reading on problem formulation, and the classic paper by Rittel and Weber on characteristics of wicked problems.

The key steps for this option are the following:

    --Select and formulate a wicked problem.
    --Justify the decisions in terms of problem's needs and challenges.
    --Study the state space in terms
        of average branching factor, number of states,
        and characteristics of optimal paths.
    --Propose heuristics (two is a good number).
    --Evaluate the heuristics using A*, comparing them and commenting
        on why they are working well, or not.