October 11, 2012
Don’t fold now!
We’re past the midpoint of the Great American History Puzzle now, friends. By this point, the plot has thickened. For some of you, I’m guessing, it’s positively congealed.
Puzzle Six was unlocked an hour ago, which probably means everyone wants to kill me. I’ll be hiding at a secret undisclosed location over the weekend until we unveil Puzzle Seven.
Several solvers have asked if complete answers to the puzzles will be made available when the contest is finished. Yes! We’ll probably use this very blog to post them, since–thank goodness–we no longer live in the age of the self-addressed stamped envelope. My colleagues on the Puzzle Team have suggested posting the answers in several waves: first a series of helpful hints, then dramatic nudges, then the complete answers. That sounds like fun to me, so that’s probably what we’ll do in a couple weeks, once we’ve crowned our grand prize winner.
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Please, no more hints from anyone except Ken. This is a contest. I’m not likely to win, but out of farover answers, not look them up.
Please no more requests for no more hints! It takes up space among the real comments. #6 presented the shortest solution time for me. Really just a matter of following instructions. My daughter read them to me, and my wife predicted the answer before I finished following them.
Thank you so much for these puzzles, although my boss might disagree: I have been late for work 2 days this week because I just can’t tear myself away from working on them! I have only solved #3 (and the very first one), but I’m having the time of my life trying to think creatively. I am so excited to see one of my favorite obsessions, origami, featured in today’s puzzle. Maybe I have a chance with this one!! It is funny but for some reason #3 just came to me quickly and seemed to be so obvious. But #2 is giving me fits. I guess that is one of the amazing things about us humans – we all think differently. Keep it coming!!
My youngest daughter took one look at this puzzle and said “mine!” With her talent for this sort of thing, we cracked it quickly. I still think #4 has been the hardest so far, since there was no obvious method of attack for it.
Oh, man. Light your torches, villagers.
Very clever. Much faster to solve than any of the others.
Agreed with frustrated! I get so annoyed when I see the twitterers like stephaniemz and Dean practically giving the answers away!
I had a lot of fun on Puzzle #6. Great work making this one.
Very clever.
Yeah, let’s just prolong the agony! Thanks, Ken! Post complete answers, red herrings and all! Let us eat cake!
Just finished #6, after a couple of false starts. That must have been difficult to construct. Congratulations, Ken. Still pondering #5, unfortunately.
Agree with Z. Thank one Twitterer in particular for spoiling the fun of discovery with Puzzle #6 by posting a photograph of how he can crush fold. What are you, 12, dude?
PS to Z, good luck to you, you seem like an honest and fair puzzler and fairly sociable for being a crypto-geek in mom’s basement
I don’t mind if people want to get/receive hints, it’s part of the fun! the only puzzle that really matters is the last one, and I’m pretty sure no one will give out hints then!
I’m going to defend stephaniemz and dean and the others you’re bashing on Twitter. There is no restriction at all on how you collaborate and with the statistical odds against most of us winning, if some of us want to try and work together online and try and have fun with us, what’s it to you? I’m glad that this contest has introduced me to new people, who share similar interests as I do. And to me that’s worth more than any secret tour. And for what it’s worth, stephaniemz has made me work for each answer on my own, she just has given me nudges in the right track. If it frustrates you to see that, then perhaps you shouldn’t be looking on Twitter?
Have many of you participated in puzzle hunts like BANG, Shinteki or Bash?
The best puzzles (which give the most satisfaction from solving) are those that require you to look at information differently. To make a leap or connection that isn’t immediately obvious. To me, following linear directions to a fixed solution is less fun. Puzzles 1,2 3 and 4 all required some leaping. 5 and 6 not so much (although still a lot of ingenuity in the building of them). Shame on the hinters that take away the “aha” moment of solution from those following them. Hi Rob.
Origami. Sigh. I can’t even fold my son’s paper airplanes!
Bravo Ken. Bravo.
We like to think that puzzles and instruction sheets are opposites. Puzzles are supposed to be cryptic and challenging, and instruction sheets are supposed to be clear and simple. And yet, as anyone who has assembled furniture or filled out tax forms knows, the line separating how-to instructions from puzzles is actually very thin, and sometimes nonexistent. Even people who love challenging puzzles often solve puzzles that are easy for them, for relaxation, and many will complain (see #3 and #4 in this contest) if a puzzle doesn’t present a clearly marked path to solution. At the same time, even the best-written instructions cannot include every detail, leaving gaps to be filled in by logic, experience, or trial and error, just like a sudoku or crossword. Kudos to Ken Jennings for #6, for presenting a puzzle that stretches the definition just a little bit. And for resisting the obvious temptation to mess around with the instructions somehow, to make it more “puzzle-like.”
Ken and team, I thoroughly enjoyed puzzle 6! Very straightforward, fun to do, and delightfully creative. Puzzle 5 was great, too, and provided a generous helping of that good feeling when you break through. Of course, like many others, 3 & 4 have me tearing my hair out.
Anyhow, thank you for the really enjoyable puzzles. I’m getting a real kick working through them. It’s nice to have a mental challenge like this. Glad I haven’t seen any of the hints from other folks… that kind of takes the fun out of the whole thing.
Cheers!
Caught up now, Solved 3,4,5 & 6 the last couple days, ready for 7. Each puzzle is unique and clever, thanks Ken.
I agree with Duff. Many thanks to @stephaniemz for a few helpful hints that helped pushed me in the right direction. I am using these puzzles in my 8th grade Pre-Ap History class as supplemental instruction. So if she is willing to share helpful hints so that I can provide instructions and helpful hints for my classes. So if you have a problem with that then maybe you should stay off twitter. @Kenjennings thanks for doing this the first puzzle was very fun and I used it in my history class to introduce the Declaration of Independence. I enjoyed watching you on Jeopardy
OK, took too many stabs at origami puzzle. But I think there may be an error in the directions. Take a look on the photo on twitter today. Not the one posted a couple of days ago, the one truly showing the answer. I distinctly see mountain folds for 34 (and 35), but the directions call for valley folds. That changes things a bit, although other folks don’t seem to be having any problem. Unless I am missing something, but I got all my other folds just fine (the first time, and I’ve never done origami). I only write in case there are others that are valley folding 34 & 35, when mountain folds appear to be the only way to an answer. Otherwise, having a great time – thanks!
Excellent puzzle! However, My wife and I we are pretty certain that one of the steps very near the end has a mislabeled fold type, though it didn’t prevent us from solving the puzzle, and we’re pretty sure our completed origami is the right shape.
@Ellen. Tim and others: steps X and Z have an ambiguity — I wouldn’t quite call it an error — in the direction of the “valley” folds they call for. Up until then, all folds described as “mountain” and “valley” were true relative to which side the number is printed on, and also true relative to which side is currently face up (except for some of the fold lines in some of the squash folds, that are described as “hidden.” ) In steps X and Z, the called-for valley folds on 34, 35, 39, and 40 are valley folds relative to the side that’s currently face up (per step W, “with (31) up…”) but mountain folds relative to the side the numbers 34, 35, 39, and 40 are printed on. Therefore calling them mountain folds would also have been likely to cause some confusion! However, once the valley fold along (30) is made in step V, there is only one way each of those reverse folds in steps W, X, Y, and Z can go. And see my previous post about the thinness of the dividing line between clear how-to instructions, and puzzles.
Initially I thought there were errors in a couple of the final origami steps but my husband, working alongside me at his first-ever origami and generally following my directions, realized on his own how those folds should look if the directions are followed as written. The directions appear to be correct.
Regarding hint-giving, I often wonder if the hints provided by others (except Ken) are not aimed at creating even more red herrings! A truly devious player might provide “hints” at sending people down wrong paths to increase his or her own chances, or perhaps that is just my own cynical skepticism at work. I suspect the last two puzzles will generate no hints from anybody, except from perhaps the truly devious.
Walt and Mary Ann make good points. If you’ve solved #6, you know where the folding instructions get touch-and-go toward the end. But if you don’t get the right shape in the end, you have NOT followed them as written. They DO work. It’s just that in the beginning you’re holding a flat sheet with all the print on one side. Toward the end, the paper is convoluted. What “side” is “up” now?
Hey, where’s the snappy post about puzzle #7?
Number 7 was another fun puzzle, thanks Ken. Onto number 8 in less than 48.
Ken, Come out, come out, wherever you are. Beginning to get a worried we haven’t heard from you on the latest puzzle and I swear, I have an alibi for the last couple of days! I have finally (maybe) conceded defeat so for those of you who have found these puzzles easy to solve, here’s a simple little puzzle to work on while you wait for Ken’s next diabolical dilemma. What do the following words all have in common: Word, Hush, Tact, Canted, Poll?
Argh! I’ve been over Puzzle 7 again and again, and it seems so clear that I have the pics and letters in the right order, but I just can’t figure out the message. Am I lost in some Puzzle 3 nightmare?
Never mind!
complete thru puzzle 7, Bring on 8!!!!