October 22, 2012
Victory
The folks at the Smithsonian magazine website tell me that we had a flurry of correct entries this afternoon, so the contest part of the Great American History Puzzle is officially over! We still need to verify some niggly eligibility stuff for our first respondent before we officially announce our winner, but congratulations to everyone who was there with us right at the end today. I know it’s been a long, confusing journey.
Today’s sudden rush of correct entries was mostly due to a small group of very sharp solvers who deciphered the final double-crostic even before they’d seen all nine parts of it–and then managed to “back-solve” the ninth puzzle sight unseen! The double-crostic wasn’t necessarily designed to be so legible so early, but in a way, I’m even more impressed by the lateral thinking required to solve everything three days early and in the wrong order!
If nothing else, I think the ninth puzzle was a lot of fun, so I hope you take a shot at it even if (a) there’s no grand prize on the table anymore and/or (b) you already know the answer going in because you are a super-smart rocket scientist who can do a Saturday New York Times crossword blindfolded in seven minutes.
The contest may be “officially” over, but I know many of you are still deep in the Smithsonian vaults working on the puzzles, so I’ll continue to blog here for a little while. The next post will give away the first password to unlock the website, in hopes of getting a new group of solvers to try out the Web puzzles even if they didn’t want to muck around will all the in-magazine rigmarole at the start. Then I’ll publish a set of hints for the nine Web puzzles, if there are a few you’re still butting your head against. Finally, detailed solutions will follow.
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Yes please, I would love to get the hints to help with the last few, 8*9*10. due to some unforseen circumstances I had to exit the gaming experience. But I would love to see this adventure occur again. A good puzzle is always a good time. Thanks Jennings.
I thoroughly enjoyed all 10 or more hours I put into this! However, I have one serious request. If you do this again (we are all hoping you will), please post the new puzzles, or at least the last one, during a fair time of day. Perhaps in the evening, so that people who have jobs that prevent them from attending the puzzle during work hours also have a shot. Alas, I had 9 puzzles solved, and didnt even look at the last one because I could not. 8 or 9 PM EST gives all time zones a decent fair shot.
Thanks!
I am curious which was the most difficult puzzle to create?
Thanks for the fun. Still puzzling over #8 and #10
I must say that I cannot remember being so engrossed by something so mentally stimulating. I love AND hate Ken Jennings at the same time. It took my husband and seven year old to see what I couldn’t on the last puzzle. Through the eyes of a child….
I also totally enjoyed this experience. And I cannot wait to do it again, even though I’m still stuck on 8. I agree with everyone who asks that, next time, release the final puzzle at a time that most people don’t have to work, like Friday night around 8 or 9pm ET.
Thank you, Ken Jennings, for the intellectual stimulation.
Can you unlock the puzzle aspect or put them somewhere i need to download a few of them for my Pre-AP History Class. I have been collecting them and i need 7 8 9 and 10 again to make copies. thanks
Congratulations to the winner.
Ken (& team), it’s been a pleasure.
I ground to a halt just shy of finishing the first layer of Puzzle #10 (just one less than the total of those represented). Maddenly, I cannot find the last, nor do I know which it is.
I had also begun filling in #11, but not enough to reverse-solve #10.
#8 had me on the ropes for a long time, until I went back to my first thought, which I had rejected because it is UNTIDY! I had struggled with a related, but more elegant, binary code. Then I realized I had misidentified (and consequently gotten the wrong number of) portraits.
If you post sequentially, it’s goig to be a long wait for hints at #10, but I’ll keep checking back.
Can you confirm whether the to-be-verified winner has been contacted yet? As one of the submitted-right-at-2pm folks, I’d like to know whether I can remove myself from the edge of my seat yet.
I really want to applaud the overall quality of the puzzles in this contest. I participate in a lot of puzzlehunts online and in person (and those of you who enjoyed this event should track down those events) and I find that many “mainstream” puzzle events consist mostly of riddles that are thrown together and inelegant. The History Puzzle puzzles, in contrast, were clever, satisfying, and fair. I thought #8 was a little more on the tedious side of the fence than the fun side, but one semi-clunker in a set of eleven is a record to be applauded.
More, please!
Thanks for a wild ride–I had a great time solving the puzzles and joining in the conversation on Twitter. Having said that, I would also like to say that the final day was disappointing. Releasing the final puzzle in the middle of a workday (although it wasn’t a concern for me) shut out a number of dedicated competitors. Likewise, having the winner determined by the person with the fastest response also worked against those who weren’t able to be sitting at their computer at a specific time. As wonderful as the prize was, I’m sure a number of people didn’t think it was worth a major overhaul of their schedule. I think a fairer method would have been a random draw of correct entries submitted by a certain date. That would remove the schedule/time zone issue and allow for more people to complete all the puzzles; you would have had a greater participation at the end and less dissatisfaction at the end. Overall, though, I did enjoy it and would most certainly participate in another contest of this nature. Thanks!
I loved it! And now that I know how these puzzles work, I am looking forward to next year. I had to look up what to do with the last one as I am not a puzzle person, although I think I may have just turned into one. Can we do it again?
Will the rest of us ever know if the Secrets tour includes a viewing of the 1947 Roswell “weather balloon”(wink,wink)and its passengers?
We must keep rumors alive.
What about those of us who live outside the US? I know we aren’t eligible to win any prizes, but now that the contest is officially over, why not open it up so that we can enjoy the challenge of solving the puzzles and learning about American history?
Now that the contest is officially, please dig in and have fun. Ken will be dishing out some devilish hints over the next few weeks…then we’ll reveal the complete answers to each — though we’ll keep them under wraps except for those who want to see it.
– The Puzzle Team
Though I never could get past puzzle #8, I enjoyed the fun and mental exercise of this imaginative contest. Mr. Jennings, thank you for a most delightful October!
I would agree with the ‘post after West Coast 9-5 M-F hours’ to give everybody a fair chance. Some of us work for a living.
Enjoyed most of the puzzles quite a lot. I think the portraits one was the most unpleasant for me.
Still don’t know what the last states answer was, as I got the final unlocked with an incorrect answer to the last one. I also got enough of the puzzle unobscured with some web creativity to have the acrostic solved in advance.
I think the web side of the puzzle needs some hardening for the future.
(and please do it again next year!!!!)
Stay tuned! Over the next few weeks Ken will be dealing out sneaky hints to each puzzle — and, eventually, the complete answers. So keep plugging away….
– The Puzzle Team
Congrats to the winner! and thanks to Ken Jennings & the puzzle team for putting this together. Although I only got four out of eleven, it’s been fun.
Stay tuned! Over the next few weeks Ken will be dealing out sneaky hints to each puzzle — and, eventually, the complete answers. So keep plugging away….
– The Puzzle Team
I think the people griping about the timed release / submit format of the puzzles have the right mentality, but the wrong approach to solving it. It seems that it would be far more simple to just set dates for the puzzles to be released, and then set a deadline for when a winner will be drawn from all correct submissions.
It’s true that this makes it harder for the really bright people who were able to solve these puzzles with little to no effort, but it also allows those that might have had all of the other solutions, but just didn’t have the free time to complete the last (and in reality the only one that had any sort of real time constraint) one.
Overall though, I thought the puzzle was a TON of fun, and I think it would be awesome if it happened again in the future.
I loved this, loved this, loved this! I’ve been on a business trip in Asia, which saw me identifying presidential portraits in my hotel room in Seoul while my colleagues were all out drinking — this process has clearly revealed what a puzzle geek I truly am. And that’s not a bad thing — I felt much better then next day than they did!
I completely agree with the “submit by a certain date and draw one” suggestion for any future puzzles — I was on a plane to New Zealand when the last puzzle was released and there was no way I could participate, which was frustrating. But overall, the quality and delightfulness of the puzzles was so high (I laughed out loud when I finally got #8 — all the sweeter because it had taken so much work) that yes, please do this again next year!
Am I in the running for most guesses to puzzle 1 without solving it?? What an honor!! Thank you puzzle team for this award,, and from all of us that did not get through puzzle 1 I wish you a ,,”" …. …”"!!!
Don’t give up! Hints to come soon…
– The Puzzle Team
Thanks Ken and the entire puzzle team. While I never got the origami puzzle solved, I certainly have learned a great deal about Jefferson,early tv broadcasting, air mail, A. Earhart, longitude and latitude,artists who painted presidential portraits…wow…what fun! Can’t wait for the next set.
I enjoyed feeling smart and stupid all at the same time! I hope this will become an annual event. But please no origami next year! Although I’m not a puzzler, I enjoyed figuring out the puzzles. Thank you to my new twitter friends. Unfortunately, number 6 is still not answered for me and it sits smack in the middle of the acrostic. I look forward to the hints to help figure out the rest.
It has been a wild ride and my 2 puzzle partners are just as attached as I am…we are stuck on 8, 9, 10…every little success produces a SUPER victory dance…so we are still plugging away. Kudos to the winner! We got excited for a while there when we were on a roll solving three in a row in a matter of minutes…Thanks Ken, it’s a love/hate relationship from us!
I, too, hope you do this again. I also think that identifying ten or twelve puzzlers before the contest started and following them through the competition could make for an interesting documentary.
Is it still possible to enter answers and unlock more of the double-crostic? I just finished #9 and it won’t take the answer. I’d still like to try to figure out the couple I haven’t done yet before seeing the hints/answers. For the record, this has been CRAZY fun!
I’m still trying to get started. I don’t have the magazine, and although the website has a form to get a pdf of it, nothing happens when I fill out the form. So I went to the library to look at it. Now I’ve solved the cipher, but ned to go back to the library to solve the clue and get the password. Will I be able to access the other puzzles once I get the password? Or is it to late?
The Great American History Puzzle will be kept on the site, and soon we’ll be issuing hints to help everyone solve them…and, eventually, the full answers…stay tuned.
– The Puzzle Team
@Melodie, I’m having exactly the same problem – I solved #9 on Saturday and although the answer seems letter-by-letter clear, the website doesn’t accept it. I’ve been entering the direct result from the puzzle as well as every variation I can think of multiple times daily since Saturday, and no luck. Big fat bummer — something weird with this one.
Would the Smithsonian magazine consider posting an “honor roll” of those folks who aren’t the winner, but who were in the group of quick submitters this afternoon?
Although I enjoyed (and solved) the first 2 puzzles, I became frustrated and gave up after that, when I could not understand what you wanted –without some kind of directions. Congrats to those of you who could read Kenb’s mind—-but I was left feeling very stupid for not being as smart as the rest of you. Congrats to the winner. Please give us the answers to at least ONE of them soon—it’s benn a month of nothing but frustration, and I’d like you to not just give the answer—but explain how we were supposed to have come to such conclusions without any directions as to what was being asked of us….
i finally finished the last puzzle!!! Thanks, Ken Jennings for allowing me to prove to myself that i had the WILL to make it to the end. I AM ready for the next one; bring it on! Congrats to SMITHsonian for a great contest!
I loved the puzzles and finished within 24hr of the last puzzle published but was not one of the awesome presolvers. The puzzles were great. I wonder how many of the puzzlers are also geocache puzzlers.
If you do this again, I have one suggestion for the final solve. Consider having a souvenir (coin, pin, certificate etc) available only to the solvers by a certain date (even if needed to be purchased by the solvers) as a commemoration. I have a feeling a lot of people would like that.
Strange….my previous comment was not added to these other comments even though I suggested that the runners-up should receive a consolation prize of a year’s subscription to the Smithsonian magazine (which I just noticed on the Twitter comments that this has indeed been done.) Can’t even get the satisfaction for a good idea…oh well!!!