How do I solve a maze using velocity and acceleration? I need to solve a maze. I can move an object around in a 2D maze by giving it 1 acceleration in any 8 of its 8 directions.
The object starts at rest at 0 velocity.
By only adding an acceleration at each step, I need it to be able to solve the maze and finish at the end position with a final velocity of 0.
This maze is shaped with big open areas and not narrow corridors of tight corners.
It should also take the least amount of steps possible to get to its destination.

This as you can imagine, would look different than simply finding the shortest path.
At any point, the state of the system is a pair $(p,v)$ where $p$ is the current position and $v$ is the current velocity vector.  At any state, there are 8 possible actions (transitions out of that state, to another state).  Search over this state space using any algorithm for searching state spaces to find the lowest-cost path from the start state to the desired end state; for example, you could use BFS, A*, etc.  This should solve the problem in a clean, straightforward, and efficient way.