Meeting Room Scheduler

Scheduling Greedy Heap

You are given a list of meeting intervals, where each meeting is represented as an object with two integer properties: start and end. For example:

{ "start": 10, "end": 20 }

Additionally, there is a mandatory cool-down period (an integer value) that must elapse after a meeting ends before the room can be used again. In other words, if a meeting ends at time E, the room becomes available only at times strictly greater than E + coolDown.

Your task is to design an algorithm that determines the minimum number of meeting rooms required to host all meetings under these constraints.

Write a function that accepts two inputs:

  1. An array of meeting objects (each with start and end properties).
  2. An integer representing the mandatory cool-down period.

The function should return an integer representing the minimum number of meeting rooms needed.

Example

Consider the following meetings and a cool-down period of 3 minutes:

[
  { "start": 10, "end": 20 },
  { "start": 23, "end": 30 }
]

For the room to be reused, the next meeting’s start time must be strictly greater than the previous meeting’s end time plus the cool-down (i.e., > 20 + 3 = 23). In this example, since the second meeting starts at 23, it cannot use the same room, so both meetings require separate rooms.

Instructions

  • Clearly state any assumptions you make.
  • Provide code in your preferred programming language.
  • Optimize for time and space where possible.
  • Ensure you test your solution with different inputs to confirm its correctness.