Puzzles and Hunts and Contests, Oh My! (or, An Introduction)

In which I reveal my background as a theoretical computer scientist by defining my terms

 

Welcome to my blog about Puzzles, Hunts and Contests.  I like them all, particularly when they're combined, and presumably you do, too, or you wouldn't be reading.  But just in case you're confused, consider this [graphic of the three primary colors of light, which I'm going to pretend is a] Venn diagram:

Puzzles are the red circle:  Where the purpose is to solve something, like a crossword or a Sudoku or a dot-to-dot.

Hunts are the green circle:  Where the purpose is to find something, like a Where's Waldo book or your quest to figure out where you left your car keys.

Contests are the blue circle:  Where the purpose is to win something, whether it's an actual prize, like the lottery, or nothing at all, like a foot race with your best friend when you're 5.

Those are all well and good, but things really start get interesting in the intersections:

Puzzle Hunts (yellow):  Activities where you have to solve something to find something.  Examples include Geocaching, non-competitive Orienteering, or the treasure hunts I make for my kids at Christmas.  Note that both Orienteering and Geocaching involve mapping and navigation; I'm just going to decree that any navigation activity is pretty much a puzzle hunt.  Obviously, a lot of the time reading a map can be trivial exercise, but it can be puzzling.  Plus you let me get away with calling a dot-to-dot a puzzle, didn't you?  There, I've run rings around you, logically.


Puzzle Contests (I think they call it magenta, but it looks pink to me):  NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday has a contest every week presented by Will Shortz.  Games magazine, which I subscribed to in my youth (back when it was edited by, hmm, Will Shortz), is still being published, and still has monthly contests, both in the magazine and now, online.  I swear one guy named Kyle Corbin from North Carolina won nearly every one of them.  Closer to home, by my definitions above, any two or more player game that involves some strategy, from chess to Go Fish, is both a contest and a puzzle, though usually with very low to no stakes.

Hunt Contests (cyan, or light blue for the rest of us):  An Easter Egg hunt, assuming there's more than one person participating.  A classic scavenger hunt, where you have to find a list of items. 

And finally, the holy grail:

Puzzle Hunt Contests  (the white part in the middle):  Competitive orienteering and navigation races, including alleycats. the Canlis menu hunt, Masquerade and other similar 'armchair treasure hunt' books, and hopefully a number of other contests that will sustain this blog for weeks and months to come.

That's nice.  Who the hell are you? 

 

I'm guessing most of my vast audience knows this already, but on the off-chance you stumbled here on accident or this blog falls through a wormhole into another dimension, I've won a few of these Puzzle-Hunt-Contests myself over the years, including the 2007 Emerald City Search, the aforementioned Canlis Menu Hunt (well, my team won phase 2 of the hunt; lots of people won individual menus),  and numerous competitive navigation races, usually urban orienteering events (I'm not the person you want to find something in the middle of the woods, trust me on that).  And incidentally, for you probably mythical readers who don't know anything about me:  I live in Seattle.


So, right off, you can guess that at some point I will regale you with stories about my glorious contest wins.  But not this time.  Perhaps more interestingly, I can give you some tips on winning contests of your own.  But not this time.  

Well, okay, here's one tip:  participate!  Which brings me to the end of this first post, and what I hope will become a regular resource:  a list of upcoming events.  Like I said, I'm interested in Puzzle, Hunts, and Contests, and particularly in combinations of 2 or more.  So I try to keep informed as to when I can actually puzzle, hunt and/or contest.  Here's what I'm looking forward to in the next month or so:

Upcoming Puzzle-Hunt-Contests

• Through April 11:  Cedar Grove's Big Dig Scavenger Hunt.   Find a 'Corey' and e-mail its location and secret code to Cedar Grove, and you get a coupon for a bag of compost.  This is really easy, and you should do it if you can use compost at all.  Surely you can, or you can at least give it away as a, ahem, thoughtful gift.  Furthermore, 20 people who find Coreys will be entered into the Big Dig Finals on April 14, where they are guaranteed one of 20 prizes (total value, $6000), in exchange for digging through a pile of compost to find them.  By the way, I've already won one of those 20 spots, so if you want to see me ruin some clothes, come on down to Rainier Beach Urban Farm on the afternoon of April 14.
• April 7:  The Resurrection V alleycat.  Show up at Cal Anderson Park at 2pm, race at 3pm.  An unsanctioned bicycle checkpoint race around Seattle with an Easter/spring theme.  Crosses, marshmallow peeps, and a giant stuffed bunny have figured into the race in the past (and I imagine that bunny will show up again, with the filth of five years on him).  A genuine hoot, and there are actual prizes (I've found that the less-organized a bike race appears, the more likely you will win a prize.  Strange, I know).  Be prepared to ride about 25 miles.
• April 11:  BEAST race #1 (of 2012), at and around Newcastle, WA.  Hardcore adventure racing takes place in the middle of nowhere, where you run around for a bit, ride a mountain bike for a bit, and paddle a kayak or something.  I don't do that.  But I am willing to run around a bit and ride my bike in the wilds of suburban Seattle, which is what a BEAST race is (Barebones Evening Adventure Something Something). Also, to make up for the lack of paddling, there's usually a random extra 'challenge' in the middle of the course on the order of croquet, disc golf, or doing a Winnie the Pooh 30-piece puzzle (harder than you might think after you've biked 10 miles).  Prizes are minimal to non-existent.  Teams encouraged.  If you're never done orienteering, I would not start here; the chances you end up exhausted on some gravel trail in the dark are non-trivial.
• April 20-22:  Orienteering A-Meet, on Whidbey Island and at Lord Hill Park, Snohomish.  The competitive meet registration has closed, but members of the public can just show up and run (or walk) a course.  Don't let the sound of 'A-Meet' intimidate you; that just means the competitive runs are sanctioned by the USOC, but it has no bearing on members of the general public.  There will even be instructors on hand to show you how to work a compass and read a map (and on the easiest course, you probably won't even need a compass).  This would be where to start if you want to do some classic orienteering.  Prizes:  the satisfaction of a job well done.  A nice walk in the woods or on the bluffs of Ft. Ebey State Park.
• April 21 - May 1:  Emerald City Search 2012, part 1.  Find a 'medallion' hidden 'in plain sight' somewhere on public property in Seattle, based on cryptic riddle clues.  Prize package of at least $9000.  More on this later, but it will really help you to look at old clues to have some hope of winning this contest.  Typically, clues get easier as it goes along, so it will be miraculous if anyone finds it in the opening weekend, but pathetic if no one finds it before the second weekend.
• April 28:  Columbia City Street Scramble.  Snohomish too far for you to go?  Afraid of getting lost in the woods?  Head down to Columbia City for this checkpoint race on foot or bike.  You could even take light rail and eat BBQ afterwards (or during, for that matter).  You get a map with 30+ checkpoints (each worth various points) and try to visit as many as you can in 90 minutes or 3 hours.  Technically, this is 'urban orienteering' and a 'rogaine' (in classic orienteering, you have to visit the checkpoints in order; in a rogaine you can visit as many as you like in any order you like).  But really, this is just a scavenger hunt in a cool neighborhood where your chances of getting truly lost are negligible.  Prize:  A ribbon and a chocolate bar if you come in first in one of the (numerous) categories.  Look for me in the 'riding a bike while towing an 8-year old' category.
• May 3:  First Thursday Adventure Run, Road Runner Sports, Green Lake.  Run (or walk) to checkpoints in the neighborhood for an hour, get raffle tickets, drink a beer while waiting to see if one of your tickets is drawn.  Prize package of $3000 in merchandise and gift cards from Road Runner and the various checkpoint businesses (plus they always have an after-party at a local bar with another raffle worth about $500).  Pre-register to save time and to get the opportunity to buy a beer for $1 (you used to get a free beer before the Washington State Liquor Control Board stepped in).  Buy an event T-shirt for double raffle tickets for the rest of the year, as well as a free beer for every run.  Note:  I bought a shirt for the April run, and it promptly paid for itself as one of the extra tickets yielded a prize of a couple of restaurant gift cards.

Ongoing:  try out those Games magazine contests, or do some geocaching.  Some of the puzzles to find a cache can be insanely hard. 


Full disclosure;  BEAST races and Street Scrambles are put on by people I know.  The orienteering A-meet is put on by someone I know.  All those races are sponsored by the Cascade Orienteering Club, which I am a member of.  The Resurrection Alleycat is put on by people I know.  The Big Dig is sponsored by Cedar Grove compost, which I use, and Seattle Public Utilities, who takes away my garbage, recycling and yard waste.  I probably met the founder of the company that writes the riddles for the Emerald City Search briefly when I won it back in 2007.  I've bought a lot of running shoes at Road Runner Sports, and they keep sending me catalogs in the mail.