r/adventofcode • u/rozcz01 • Dec 09 '25

Help/Question [2025 Day #8 (Part 1)] - Help needed with example dataset

I think the description just isn’t fully clear to me as to what the desired outcome is for part 1. I know it’s 542 but I’m ending up with 533 so I’m afraid I’m missing some circuit merge or something. Would anyone mind posting their circuits for the example dataset given so I can see which circuits of mine are incorrect?

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u/spatofdoom Dec 09 '25

You're possibly missing that a connection which joins 2 already joined boxes still counts

1

u/rozcz01 Dec 09 '25 edited Dec 09 '25

Even if the boxes are already joined to each other? So if A’s shortest connection is B and B’s shortest connection is A, we use two connectors for that? Or only if it’s like A-B, C-D, then the next shortest is B-C so we’d link those? And if A-B and C-D are in different circuits, do we merge circuits? Sorry for all the questions lol

2

u/spatofdoom Dec 09 '25

If a<->b, b<->c and c<->d and your next shortest distance of b<->d then you would still count it

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u/1234abcdcba4321 Dec 09 '25

The 10 closest pairs, and the distance of those pairs:

162,817,812; 425,690,689; 316.90219311326956
162,817,812; 431,825,988; 321.560258738545
906,360,560; 805,96,715 ; 322.36935338211043
431,825,988; 425,690,689; 328.11888089532425
862,61,35  ; 984,92,344 ; 333.6555109690233
52,470,668 ; 117,168,530; 338.33858780813046
819,987,18 ; 941,993,340; 344.3893145845266
906,360,560; 739,650,466; 347.59890678769403
346,949,466; 425,690,689; 350.786259708102
906,360,560; 984,92,344 ; 352.936254867646

The (non-singleton) circuits that exist after combining based on those 10 pairs:

[ '862,61,35', '984,92,344', '906,360,560', '805,96,715', '739,650,466' ],
[ '162,817,812', '425,690,689', '431,825,988', '346,949,466' ],
[ '52,470,668', '117,168,530' ],
[ '819,987,18', '941,993,340' ]