Answer:
/*
Notably, this leaves a blank line at the top, so if that shouldn't be there you can tweak it.
This was built successfully with gcc
gcc -Wall shape.cpp -lstdc++
*/
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(void){
int w, x;
for(w = 0; w < 16; w += 2){
for(x = 0; x < w >> 1; x++){
cout << "*";
}
for(x = w; x < 14; x++){
cout << " ";
}
for(x = 0; x < w >> 1; x++){
cout << "*";
}
cout << endl;
}
return 1;
}