Microsoft Puzzle Challenge
What do you get when you cram four friends, 3 laptops, and way too much soda in a room in the College of ComputingBuilding for twelve hours? Normally you’d probably end up with something resembling one of the Saw movies, but if Microsoft has any say in it, you’ll emerge with 40 (hopefully) solved puzzles.
Last fall, Microsoft came to campus to host its annual Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge, a competition in which teams of college students across the country race to solve as many puzzles as possible. Hosted by on-site Microsoft employees and judged by employees at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA, the event lasted from 12pm to 12am, Atlanta time.Each team was given a room, provisions, and craft supplies and told that it had 12 hours in which to solve the elusive Meta Puzzle. Before they could even attempt this goal, though, teams had to solve as many smaller puzzles as possible.
While it was technically possible to win the competition by only solving this one super-puzzle, it was realistically impossible to solve without solving the majority of
the others, since each puzzle unlocked more clues necessary to solving the final puzzle. Of the 50 teams to solve the final puzzle, all correctly solved at least 30 of the 36 other questions, with most teams scoring more than that.
The smaller puzzles—which were all written by Microsoft employees, with a few even written by some of the company’s Georgia Tech grads—ran the gamut of logical twists, number games, programming problems, trivia, and even a bit of arts and crafts.
While some were straightforward (like translating a series of numbers into T9 and decoding their meaning) other puzzles were so obtuse that they didn’t even pose a question at first glance.
One question, entitled “No Brains Required,” simply gave participants five sets of movie facts. The solution? Identifying that the movies identified by each set shared a common actor. Once the actor is discovered, contestants had to realize that they all of the actors had played Batman at one point or another. By ciphering through the letters of the actors names, the word “Crane” bubbles to the top and, combined with the nod to The Wizard of Oz in the puzzle’s title, the questions answer, “Scarecrow,” is revealed.
Other particularly interesting puzzles included a two-dimensional version of the popular game Portal, building a paper model of a studio set and reading the message that appears when it’s viewed from above, and even a trap set by Admiral Ackbar.
Some puzzles took a more meta-game approach. One of these involved repeated messages forbidding participants from attempting to bribe the challenge’s overseers. While these messages were being sent out, one puzzle, entitled “Do as You’re Told” disguised itself as sheet of instructions. When made an offer in exchange for information, the staff would provide the answer to the puzzle.
The first team to solve the puzzle was Princeton’s Left for Dead which finished the challenge several hours in advance having solved all but one of the puzzles. Tech’s top team, The Hive, ranked in at number 77 having solved 34 of the 36 questions, but not the Meta Puzzle.
The grand prize included an Xbox 360 Elite and Zune HD for each team member. First, second, and third place winners at each location were given a choice from a variety of video games and software (including free copies of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition). Honorable mentions (also awarded with prizes) were given for a variety of distinctions, such as answering the most questions incorrectly or posing the funniest question.
The Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge is an annual event that will be held again in the fall. Spots fill up quickly, so if you are interested, be on the lookout for what may be one of the most awesome ways to spend a Saturday.
