This is a simple project that attempts to computationally produce an optimal solution to the disk covering problem (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/DiskCoveringProblem.html).
The project was written for Rose-Hulman's Mathematical Modeling course and is based on problem B from COMAP's 2011 MCM contest. The original question can be found here http://www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/contests/2011/problems/.
The code is written in Python and two different implementations are provided.
The first uses the Pyomo modeling language (https://software.sandia.gov/trac/coopr) and the GNU Linear Programming Kit (http://www.gnu.org/software/glpk/) to produce a solution.
The second employs a genetic-algorithm technique (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GeneticAlgorithm.html).
Currently, the provided implementations attempt to solve the disk covering problem. For the 2011 problem B from MCM, we would like to place the circles so that each circle's center is inside or touching another's radius.