Edd Mann

Since being introduced to the world of Advent of Code just prior to the 2020 calendar starting, I subsequently spent the majority of 2021 completing (and documenting) the 2015, 2016 and 2017 calendars.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been considering how feasible it would be to deploy the wedding website I released earlier this year on Kubernetes using a Raspberry Pi cluster.

We have been big fans of DataDog and the level of telemetry/monitoring it provides us for many years now.

I have always been amazed by the sheer number of services AWS offers.

I am a big proponent of the Serverless movement.

Having had great success using AWS Lambda within our insurance product (MyBuilder Plus), late last year we made the decision to move all our web request traffic over to the platform!

Ensuring that both the tech team and the company as a whole are aware of changes that have just been released is very important.

Like many developers, over-engineering personal projects in the spirit of learning is something I am well aware of doing.

Over the past couple of years, I have explored several different ways to solve the problem of allocating Secret Santas for members of my family.

I have recently become very interested in microcontrollers, particularly the Raspberry Pi Pico.

After building the Pocket Cube Solver, I wished to expand upon this design and cater for a conventional 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube.

Over the past couple of months, I have been very interested in exploring how to efficiently visualise and solve a Rubik’s Cube.

On the eleventh day of Advent of Code 2016, we are tasked with moving all the supplied Generators and Microchips to the top floor using a single elevator.

On the tenth day of Advent of Code 2016, we come across a factory in which many robots are zooming around, handing small microchips to each other.

On the ninth day of Advent of Code 2016, we are asked to calculate the decompressed length of a file.

On the eighth day of Advent of Code 2016, we are required to work out what a smashed LCD screen would have displayed.

On the seventh day of Advent of Code 2016, we are required to determine which IPv7 addresses support TLS (Transport-Layer Snooping) and SSL (Super-Secret Listening).

On the sixth day of Advent of Code 2016, we are required to determine the error-corrected message that is being sent to Santa.

On the fifth day of Advent of Code 2016, we are asked to calculate the password for a security door in Easter Bunny HQ.

On the fourth day of Advent of Code 2016, we are asked to validate and decrypt a listing of room names.

On the third day of Advent of Code 2016, we are asked to work out how many valid triangles are present in a given listing.

On the second day of Advent of Code 2016, we are asked to work out what a bathroom code is based on the supplied instructions.

Having enjoyed documenting my progress in completing the Advent of Code 2015 advent calendar in TypeScript, I have decided to do the same for 2016.

On the twenty-fifth day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to help Santa boot up his weather machine.

On the twenty-fourth day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to help Santa balance his sleigh based on all the presents he has to carry.

On the twenty-third day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to help ‘Little Jane Marie’ run a program on a computer she got for Christmas.

On the twenty-second day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to help ‘Little Henry Case’ beat the boss in another video game he is stuck on.

On the twenty-first day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to help ‘Little Henry Case’ beat the boss in a new video game he got for Christmas.

On the twentieth day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to help work out how many presents the Elves will deliver to specific houses.

On the nineteenth day of Advent of Code 2015, Rudolph is sick, and we have been tasked with helping develop the custom-made medicine required.

On the eighteenth day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to re-arrange the light show we created on a previous day.

On the seventeenth day of Advent of Code 2015, the elves bought 150 litres of eggnog that we are asked to fit in the supplied containers for refrigeration.

On the sixteenth day of Advent of Code 2015, we are tasked with working out which Aunt Sue (there are 500!?)

On the fifteenth day of Advent of Code 2015, we are tasked with finding the right balance of ingredients to make the perfect milk-dunking cookie recipe.

On the fourteenth day of Advent of Code 2015, Santa wants to find out who is the fastest reindeer.

On the thirteenth day of Advent of Code 2015, we are tasked with finding the optimal seating arrangement for our family holiday feast.

On the twelfth day of Advent of Code 2015, Santa’s Accounting-Elves need help balancing the books after a recent order.

On the eleventh day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to help Santa pick a new memorable password, as his last one has expired.

On the tenth day of Advent of Code 2015, the Elves are playing a game of look-and-say, in which we are asked to find several terms in the sequence.

On the ninth day of Advent of Code 2015, Santa wants us to examine some new locations (and distances) he is required to visit.

On the eighth day of Advent of Code 2015, Santa wants to know how much space his newly digitised list will take up when stored.

On the seventh day of Advent of Code 2015, we are tasked with helping little Bobby Tables assemble a circuit (wires and bitwise logic gates) that Santa brought him for Christmas.

On the sixth day of Advent of Code 2015, we are tasked with trying to win the holiday house decorating contest - by designing the best light sequence 💡.

On the fifth day of Advent of Code 2015, Santa needs help figuring out which strings in his text file are naughty or nice - a.k.a best load up a Regular Expression tester!

On the fourth day of Advent of Code 2015, Santa needs help mining some AdventCoins 💵.

Since being introduced to Advent of Code, one feature missing from JavaScript that I have seen available in other languages (such as Python and Clojure) is Sets that handle Compound data-types.

On the third day of Advent of Code 2015, we are asked to help determine (based on supplied directions) how many houses Santa (and Robo-Santa) will deliver presents to.

The second day of Advent of Code 2015 brings us a small maths problem by way of Elves running low on wrapping paper.

This past December, a fellow colleague introduced us to Advent of Code.

Following on from my previous post which highlighted my experience building an Enigma Machine in ClojureScript.