I was asked this question in a phone interview recently and I bombed it completely. Zero clue how to approach it. I wasn't able to find any similar patterns on google-ing. Thought maybe folks here might be able to help?
Statement: Given m
sticks with different lengths. Combine these sticks to form longer sticks with the same length. What’s the smallest possible length of these newly unified sticks?
Conditions:
- Must use all sticks
m < 50
- max length of single stick less than 20
Example:
Input: 5 2 1 5 2 1 5 2 1
Output: 6
(Process: 1+5, 1+5, 1+5, 2+2+2)
Input: 3 3 3 2 2 5
Output: 9
(Process: 3+3+3, 2+2+5)
Input: 1 2 3 4 5
Output: 5
(Process: 2+3, 1+4, 5)
Input: 1 3 4 5
Output: 13
(Process: 1+3+4+5)