The elves are out for a fun skating adventure! The ice rink is partly a frozen lake on the right side and partly an over-frozen meadow on the left side of the plot. (The border between the two areas is marked with a black line.) You can see the trails they skate along, with each trail colored according to how far they go depending on how many cookies they eat before skating. There’s even a legend showing cookie amounts from 0 to 10.
The elves have a sweet—but risky—problem: the more cookies they eat, the farther they skate along their trail. If they end up on the frozen lake and the sun starts melting the ice, they could end up in the water!
How many cookies should each elf eat (all get the same amount) so that when their cookie fuel runs out, a. ✅❄️🎉 Any amount is fine—no matter how many cookies they eat, they’ll stop safely.
b. ⚠️🌊🥶 Any amount means some elves will end up in the water.
c. 🍪🍪⛸️ As long as they all have only 2 cookies each, they are safe on the meadow.
d. 🤞🍪❄️ When they each eat 5 cookies, they might just be fine.
e. 🍪🌊❌ As long as they all have at least 8 cookies, they are safe.
f. ⛸️🍪✅ They must eat at most 8 cookies each to be safe.
Related control topic: root locus curve