Ponder This Challenge - June 2026 - The Superhero Team Movies
IBM Research, Monday, June 1st, 2026
Find an optimal movie sequence covering all superhero combinations for 6 or 10 heroes.
IBM Research's Ponder This puzzle challenges solvers to design a movie franchise that covers all possible superhero team combinations with minimum action sequences. Each movie builds progressively, with heroes joining one at a time, creating increasingly larger team combinations.
The challenge requires finding an optimal solution for 6 superheroes in compact notation format, with a bonus for solving the case of 10 heroes. This combinatorial problem extends a worked example with 3 heroes where 7 combinations cover all possibilities across 3 films.