Puzzle Masters

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Instructor: Lisa Fontaine-Rainen
5-10 students
Suggested Age Ranges: 11+ years old
Meets: Thursdays at 1:45 pm Eastern Time

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

Do you love escape rooms?  Have you heard of the MIT Mystery Hunt?  Are you intrigued by a bunch of puzzles that work together towards a single meta-solution?  Do you love working with others as a team to tackle tricky teasers? 

This class is all about teamwork - we’ll come together to work on solving a small puzzle hunt in the style of MIT Mystery Hunt.  Each student will also create at least one puzzle with an extractable solution, which I will then work into a meta-puzzle for our own mini puzzle-hunt.

This is a light, fun course that will also prepare students to hit the ground running in GCP’s Puzzlecraft course.  Each term this is offered, we will tackle a different issue of P&A Magazine , so students may choose to take this course multiple times and will have a different experience each time.  If you’d like to try out the magazine, there is a free sampler at http://www.pandamagazine.com/panda_sampler.pdf.  I highly encourage families to try the sampler out together.

Students must be prepared to work on puzzles outside of the live class time, collaboratively through Google docs and forum discussions.

Come sharpen your puzzle solving skills in ways far beyond the typical!  Come puzzle with us!

Puzzle in our course image was created at https://webpbn.com/index.cgi, and is in the style of puzzles called Paint by Numbers or Descartes Engima.  For those who register on that site, the puzzle is #32408 and available to solve.  A blank copy of it is below.

Syllabus:

Day 1: Introduction to puzzles with extractable solutions, tips for solving puzzle hunts, introduction to our issue of P&A Magazine

Day 2: Collaborative solving - puzzles determined by participants.  Introduction to meta-puzzles.

Day 3: Collaborative solving - puzzles determined by participants.  Crafting a puzzle - the basics.

Day 4: Collaborative solving - puzzles determined by participants.  Crafting a puzzle - working backwards from the solution.

Day 5: Collaborative solving - puzzles determined by participants.  Crafting a puzzle - choosing a theme.

Day 6: Collaborative solving - puzzles determined by participants.  Crafting a puzzle - creating flavor text.

Day 7: Collaborative solving - puzzles determined by participants.  Crafting a puzzle - the importance of puzzle testing.

Day 8: Collaborative solving, finishing the puzzle hunt.  Sharing out of puzzles crafted.

Register here for Puzzle Masters!