Problem 1870. GJam:2013 World B: MAD Drummer

This Challenge is derived from the Google Code Jam 2013 World Championship. The Problem B Drummer is modified for Cody. The Google question story is to find the Drummer with the Best Beat based on the Minimum Absolute Delta metric. The MAD (aka LAD) is more complicated than LMSF.

The challenge is to produce a series that has a Minimum Absolute Delta from a series of increasing values. The user series is of the form b,b+K,b+2*k,b+3*k,...,b+(N-1)*k for a set of N values.

Input: v ; A vector of two to ten integers of increasing values

Output: MAD ; the Minimum Absolute Delta of the optimum sequence from given values.

Accuracy: <2e-6

Examples:

[10 70] {0}
[0 10 19 30] {0.5}
[2 5 10 15 20 24]{0.75}

The Drummer Analysis may be of help. The Champions solutions can be seen at the Contest Scoreboard if a user profile is created. Java and C appear to dominate. Code Jam entries can be entered at Drummer Solve B-small.

Best Time: 24 minutes