VOLCANO ISLAND
Volcano Load Balancer
The crystal rescue team has three cooling vents. Share every hot crystal fairly, or one vent will overload!
🧠 Before we start
On Tiko's trail, you grouped repeated data to make it smaller. Today, a load balancer spreads new jobs across workers. It checks who is least busy, sends one job there, then checks again.
👀 Check loads→⚖️ Pick least busy→💎 Send one job→🔁 Check again
Challenge 1 of 4Build the balancing program
1
Arrange the rescue program
Tap four visual instruction blocks in the order a load balancer should use them.
MY VISUAL BALANCING PROGRAM
1 · CHECK
2 · CHOOSE
3 · SEND
4 · REPEAT
First, the program needs fresh information about every vent.
2
Route the crystal convoy
Six crystals are arriving. Each number shows a vent's current load. Tap the least-busy vent for every new job.
NEXT JOB 💎 1 of 6
ROUTE MAP
Compare all three numbers. The smallest load has room.
3
Share a three-way tie
All vents are equally free. Follow the rotating pointer so ties stay fair instead of always choosing Vent A.
FAIR POINTER → VENT A
FAIR ROUTE
A rotating tie rule is called round robin.
Start at A, then rotate to B, then C.
4
Debug the stale-load alarm
The program checked once, then sent every crystal using that old picture. Choose the repair that keeps decisions accurate.
OVERLOAD BUG
OLD PICTUREA 0 · B 0 · C 0
→AFTER 4 JOBSA 4 · B 0 · C 0🔥 A overloaded!
A load changes whenever a worker gets a job.
🌟 What you learned
- A load balancer spreads jobs across several workers.
- Least-busy routing compares current loads before every decision.
- After sending a job, the worker's load changes.
- Round robin rotates between workers when their loads tie.
- Old load data causes bad choices, so programs refresh state before routing again.