Puzzle Hunt

Rules

Somewhere on the TU/e campus we have hidden an object. The main puzzle, and the 20 clues that feed in to it, will tell you where to find it. The entire puzzle, like these rules, uses the english language.

To win first prize: Simply bring the object to Stack. If buildings are closed, photograph yourself with the object, email the photo to puzzlehunt@stack.nl, and as soon as buildings open, bring the object to Stack.

To win the other prizes: Send an email with the solutions to all 20 clues as well as your best guess as to where the object was hidden to puzzlehunt@stack.nl. The email must include your name and address.

The contest starts as soon as Cursor 13 appears, and continues until the object is found, or Friday December 18, 18:00pm, whichever occurs first. If no-one has found the object on Monday December 14, 9:00am, we will publish additional clues on the Cursor website. Email submissions are accepted until Friday December 18, 18:00pm in any case.

You have our guarantee that no digging or other acts of vandalism are required to reach the object.

Any employee or student of the TU/e can participate. Cursor employees, Stack board members and our testers are not eligible for prizes.

Prizes

First prize: A Sony Playstation 3 or 250 euros cash, provided by MCGV Stack

Second prize: 150 euros worth of computer accessories (a Wacom tablet, webcam and tv-adapter), provided by ASML.

Third prize: 75 euros worth of brainteaser puzzles, provided by Jolie-spellen.

Extra prizes: The five best participants will also win a special visit to ASML headquarters.

Among all non-prizewinning participants we will also raffle off several copies of the book "De wet op internet", written by Arnoud Engelfriet of http://www.ictrecht.nl/.

Award Ceremony

The final results were announced during Stack's new year's reception on Tuesday, January 12, at 19:00. Stack was absolutely packed with people who came especially for the solution presentation. Most of the stories told are in the solution booklet as well.

Hints, Solutions and other materials

The original puzzle is archived on the Cursor site.

Please see the Hints Booklet for additional hints for the Puzzle Hunt.

The three promotional posters are now up for download - they contain no hints but may be of interest:

Puzzle Hunt Win

The full solutions to the Puzzle Hunt are now available.

The Players

During the contest we knew of only nine teams, but we ended up with fifteen that sent in a solution on Friday. Below are all those teams. For the teams that did not choose a name we've put the name of the contact in brackets. If we estimate the average number of team members conservatively at 3 this means we had over 40 people puzzling.

Batspaupers

6 members

Casa Criela

3 members

Energy

4 members

Frank & Emiel

duo

Gewis Puzzelteam

number of members unknown

GEWIS Q

number of members unknown

(Van Helvoort)

number of members unknown

ICTheek & WTB

4 members

Intermate

number of members unknown

Pael

3 members

PRBSS Team

number of members unknown

De Progressieven

number of members unknown

Robin & Jaap

duo

Simon Stevin

number of members unknown

TU/eur

number of members unknown

Progress

During the Puzzle Hunt, players were encouraged to let us know how they were doing. They could send their comments and thoughts to puzzlehunt@stack.nl. We used this to keep a more or less up to date progress report on this page. We also had a semi-live twitter feed.

Friday, december 18

18:00

Puzzlehunt 2009 has ended!

We've just retrieved the object from where we hid it, confirming that no-one found it. All prizes will now be awarded based on 1) number of correct answers to the 20 clues, and 2) best guess for the location of the object.

16:52

Solutions have begun to come in, as teams either give up or think they've done the best they can.

09:00

Final day! Even if you don't find the object (or solve everything) be sure to send in your solutions, to be eligible for prizes.

Thursday, december 17

17:20

All is quiet. So quiet in fact that we fear that everybody has given up.

11:21

Teams seem to be on the verge of solving it. Requests for additional hints have been trickling in for a while now. We're not going to do that and have sent out this mail to all puzzlers known to us:

"We understood from some of you that you are finding it difficult to complete the puzzle hunt and have asked when more hints will become available. Right now we cannot provide you with any more hints as that would be unfair to anyone working on the hunt who has not yet let us know they are doing so. So, for now, all we can do is encourage you to press on, look at the puzzles again and find the insight you need to solve them. We are more than confident that you should be able to complete the hunt with what you have.

Of course, do not forget to send us your solutions, as complete as possible, before Friday 18.00 hrs to be eligible for the other prizes on offer. Should the object not be found by Friday 18.00 hrs we will let you know what will happen."

Wednesday, december 16

15:58

A poster used to hang near Stack that had a picture of the object to find (the so called "Hunt" poster). It has disappeared and we have no replacement copies. While the poster has no significance for the puzzles, we reconize that it is useful for people who want to know what they are looking for. So we've put all three posters up for download.

09:36

By special request a sign of life - the object has not been found yet. We don't exactly get hour-by-hour reports anymore (the last mail we received was from half past one this morning) but we think several teams are very close. We wish to encourage all teams to keep at it - and be stealthy when you go fetch the object!

Tuesday, december 15

12:01

Every clue has now been solved by someone (not necessarily the same person in all cases)

10:05

Another day another chance. Several teams think they are very close and are searching the campus where they think the object is hidden.

Monday, december 14

23:14

Although the previously mentioned team thought they had it figured out, it seems that the object still has not yet been found.

18:47

A team just walked into Stack to check if they had been beaten to the finish, before they left to find the object where they thought it is hidden.

17:00

More and more reports are coming in from the teams, who shall be the first to have the puzzle cracked?

16:29

Two of the very early teams from WTB and the ICTheek have joined forces.

14:10

Intermate have just joined the hunt. They'll have to work hard to catch up with the rest.

12:27

Well, well, well. One team thinks they're 'almost done'. We shall see ;)

11:06

Politics and fun do mix - De Progressieven are on the hunt for a Playstation.

09:00

The PDF with extra hints has gone up on both the Cursor site and this page. Is today the day?

Sunday, december 13

23:41

We estimate at least 6 different teams are playing.

19:41

Don't forget, tonight is your last chance to claim the first prize before we put up the extra hints. You might lose your advantage if you wait too long.

16:49

A duo has reported in!

Saturday, december 12

Nothing to report, because no-one reported in...

Friday, december 11

13:24

For almost all puzzles one group or another has now reported that they believe to have solved it. Who will be the first to have a full set?

11:43

Several other groups have chimed in to let us know they are working on the puzzles.

Thursday, december 10

19:56

Rumours have reached us of a team claiming to have solved a massive 15 clues.

14:55

Apparently the race is on: an attempt on clue 15 has been reported as well.

14:43

Another contestant reported they think they have solved clue 2.

11:31

One contestant reported they think they have solved clue 6.

09:00

Cursor is available, the hunt has started!