The back wall of this fishtank is a touch-sensitive monitor. On the monitor is a scrambled picture. Perhaps a favorite photo, or a famous castle, or your football team's logo.

The scrambling is in squares, like those square-shifting puzzles. As with these puzzles, there is one open square (no picture portion). Each time a fish contacts one of the squares adjacent to the open square, the contacted picture square is moved into the open spot, clearing the current spot. When a square is moved to its proper place for the unscrambled picture, it is locked in place and no more fishy-touching will move it.

How long will it take your genius fish to complete the puzzle?

Hours - nay, weeks - of fish tank fun.
-- globaltourniquet, Nov 20 2007

my fish got cancer. thanks a lot.
-- k_sra, Nov 21 2007


Wrong again, twit.
-- 4whom, Nov 21 2007


bunalicious
-- Voice, Nov 21 2007


[jscott] good point. Let's see... we could take care of that by allowing any locked-in piece to switch on contact with the proper piece for the square. How's that sound?
-- globaltourniquet, Nov 22 2007


That's the solution, [boysparks]. You do not lock if you would be locking out the solution. That is simple.
-- globaltourniquet, Nov 25 2007


If you could somehow show the fish a different photo that couldn't be seen by the casual observer, the fish could be encouraged to hit appropriate squares. For example, Male Siam fighting fish would try to bite a competitive male.
-- Ling, Nov 25 2007



random, halfbakery