Revision as of 20:57, 9 November 2015

We on Floorpi really like doing puzzles. We participate in lots of puzzle hunts, including Mystery Hunt, Dash, BAPHL, and PANDA Magazine. Many on hall also enjoy playing trivia games (Sporcle, Quiz Bowl) and doing logic puzzles (US Puzzle Championship, Nikoli, Logic Masters India, Professor Layton).

floorpi-puzzle, created in 2013, is the primary mailing list used to announce and discuss puzzles.

Mystery Hunt

Floorpi has competed in the MIT Mystery Hunt during IAP for many years, often joined by alumni and friends of hall. Our team size is usually somewhere in the 20-40 range. Hunting usually takes place in the lounges and residents' rooms, and certain people (such as Ian) have been known to stay awake for an absurd length of time during hunt. Our most recent hall teams were named "✈✈✈Galactic Trendsetters✈✈✈" (2013), "Occupy Leisure Station" (2012), and "Desert Catbus" (2011).

There have historically been a fairly significant number of Mathcampers on hall, and they often hunt with Manic Sages, who won in 2012 and wrote the 2013 hunt. In 2013, a number of hall members also hunted with Palindrome, placing 2nd.

Results

• 2013: ✈✈✈Galactic Trendsetters✈✈✈ (appearing as "wub" on the scoreboard, which was our Hunt website username; it was second place on our "name the Mystery Hunt team" poll) placed 16th of 44 teams. We were joined by the Stanford University Mathematical Organization for the 2013 hunt.
• 2012: Occupy Leisure Station placed 17th of 33 teams.
• 2011: Desert Catbus placed 32nd of 41 teams.

BAPHL

The Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League is a runaround-style hunt in Boston.

Results

• BAPHL 8 (10/26/2013): ✈✈✈Galactic Trendsetters✈✈✈ placed 1st of 22 teams in the Competitive division.
• BAPHL 7 (4/27/2013): ♘♘♘ Galactic Trendsetters ♘♘♘ placed 8th of 29 teams in the hard division.
• BAPHL 6 (9/15/2012): Guitar Heroes placed 9th of 32 teams in the hard division.
• BAPHL 5 (4/21/2012): For the Galaxy placed 8th of 19 teams in the hard divison.
• BAPHL 4 (8/13/2011): Saddening Goat placed 1st in the normal division.

DASH

Different Area, Same Hunt is a runaround-style hunt held simultaneously in a number of locations across the US, including Boston.

Results

• DASH 5 (5/18/2013): ۞۞۞ Galactic Imperium ۞۞۞ and ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ placed 8th and 15th overall (3rd and 4th in Boston), respectively, of 295 teams (27 in Boston) in the hard division.

Australian Puzzle Hunts

There are a surprisingly large number of Australian-run online puzzle hunts, including ΣUMS (Sydney University Mathematics Society), MUMS (Melbourne University Math and Statistics Society), and CISRA (Canon Information Research Systems Australia).

Results

ΣUMS Puzzle Hunt

• 2015: [pi] placed 7th of the 166 teams who solved at least one puzzle.
• 2014: [pi] placed 19th of the 149 teams who solved at least one puzzle.
• 2013: [pi] placed 8th of the 132 teams who solved at least one puzzle.
• 2012: [pi] placed 15th of the 142 teams who solved at least one puzzle.

MUMS Puzzle Hunt

• 2015: [pi] placed 13th of 166 teams.
• 2014: [pi] placed 11th of 192 teams.
• 2013: [pi] placed 2nd of 138 teams, but received 3rd prize due to not being able to fly to Australia to solve the runaround.

CISRA Puzzle Competition

• 2013: [pi] placed 1st of the 211 teams who completed at least one puzzle.

College Puzzle Hunts

These are often run by recruiters at tech companies.

Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge

The Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge is an event held simultaneously at multiple Microsoft campuses near colleges. We compete at the Cambridge site.

• 2013: Galactic Trendsetters placed 2nd of 278 teams.

Palantir Puzzle Hunt

The Palantir Puzzle Hunt is an event held at multiple college campuses. The MIT hunt to attracts both MIT and Harvard teams.

• 2013: ✈✈✈Galactic Trendsetters✈✈✈, God's Dice, and 3.0000000000000000 placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively, of 57 teams. ✈✈✈Galactic Trendsetters✈✈✈ also placed 1st overall among all sites. Of these, the first and third teams were composed completely of Floorpi residents and former residents, while the second team was a Floorpi half-team joined with another half-team.

• 2012: ✈✈✈Galactic Trendsetters✈✈✈ and Foxes?! placed 1st and 7th, respectively, of 27 teams.

US Puzzle Championship

The US Puzzle Championship "is an annual online competition sanctioned by the World Puzzle Federation." It is used to select the US team for the World Puzzle Championship. It features logic puzzles only, unlike puzzle hunt-style puzzles.

Floorpi Results

Only includes results after a resident started school at MIT.

2013

• Anderson: 6th (234 points)
• Ian: 12th (185)
• Damien: 114th (62)
• Jon: 126th (57)
• Carl: 152nd (42)
• Josh: 159th (38)

2012

• Anderson: 8th (208 points)
• Ian: 12th (190)
• Damien: 104th (82)
• Josh: Unofficial (75)
• DD: 206th (35)