Toy problem

In scientific disciplines, a toy problem is a problem that is not of immediate scientific interest, yet is used as an expository device to illustrate a trait that may be shared by other, more complicated, instances of the problem, or as a way to explain a particular, more general, problem solving technique.

For instance, while engineering a large system, the large problem is often broken down into many smaller toy problems which have been understood in good detail. Often these problems distill a few important aspects of complicated problems so that they can be studied in isolation. Toy problems are thus often very useful in providing intuition about specific phenomena in more complicated problems.

See, for example:

• Santa Fe Ant Trail problem
• Secretary problem
• Missionaries and cannibals problem
• Monkey and Banana problem
• N-Queens problem
• Firing squad synchronization problem