[reificator]

Much appreciated.

Hmmm, that's an interesting question. It's the Price is Right closest without going over solver...

Practical answer, drop from the first floor and then the second. You're probably not going to make it to the third.

I don't want to put my actual answer in case others want to solve it. But I will say there's an obvious solution, but if you apply one of the hard problems of computer science you might eke out a bit of an edge.

EDIT: Actually I don't think that's right. I think the answer varies based on your expectations, and should be tuned after each run if you run the same test multiple times. I do have a good starting point in mind though.

[reificator]

Final edit but too late to edit my post:

After thinking about it on the ride home today, I was not quite on the right track before. Again don't want to post my solution because the entire point in asking was so that people could see the question and work it through themselves.

[robotmlg]

> closest without going over

That's The Price Is Right, not Wheel of Fortune ;-)

[reificator]

My bad, I haven't watched either in at least a decade.

I was definitely picturing The Price is Right at least.