Computer-aided solution to the $k$-bonacci pick-up sticks problem

Abstract

A full solution to the recently proposed problem of determining the probability that no $k$-gon can be built from $n$ independently and uniformly chosen sticks in $[0,1]$ is proposed. This extends the known results for triangles and quadrilaterals to general $k$-gons and offers a clearer interpretation of the connection to products of $k$-bonacci numbers.