Canadian Computing Competition: 2025 Stage 1, Junior #5
Ava is playing a strategic game on a grid of tiles.
Each tile has an associated cost. When the costs
of the tiles are read from left to right, starting
with the first row, a repeating pattern of the first


Ava needs to purchase one tile in each row in order to
make a connecting path from the upper territory (above
the first row of tiles) to the lower territory (below the
last row of tiles). The first tile purchased must be in
the first row. Each subsequently purchased tile must
share either an edge or a corner with the tile purchased
previously. In the grid of tiles shown, the cost of Ava's
connecting path is
Given a grid of tiles, your job is to determine the minimum cost of a connecting path between the upper and lower territories.
Input Specification
The first line of input contains a positive integer,
The following table shows how the available
Marks | Description | Bounds |
---|---|---|
3 | There are two rows and at most ten columns. | |
8 | There are at most ten rows and at most ten columns. | |
2 | There are at most | |
2 | The grid may be very large. |
Output Specification
Output the positive integer,
Sample Input
3
5
7
Sample Output
6
Explanation for Sample Output
The cost of each tile is shown. The sequence of tiles that Ava should purchase to minimize the cost of a connecting path is highlighted in green.

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