Hanging out at the auto mechanic today to address an overdue issue with an engine part on recall, and it’s been a good opportunity to kick back and solve a few puzzles. Our team, The Sign of Four, is down to the final 39 puzzles of Puzzle Boat 2, which sounds like a lot when you don’t consider how many we started with.
Our team seems to have success working in bursts; we’ve only had two online sessions in which we got our full team together to progress through challenges, but we’ve had a lot of luck with late night Discord chat sessions working through puzzles. I added Discord on my phone, and it’s great having all our active puzzles only one click away at any given time.
I was targeting completing this challenge in under 30 days, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to hit that mark. That actually works better for me, though. I started spending more time on my Rubik’s Cube again and got a new best time of 1:02. It was a lucky configuration only requiring about 140 turns to solve (usually it’s around 180), and had I not been rusty, I wonder if I would have crossed the minute mark for the first time. Regardless, I’m getting close.
It looks like I’m going to be able to join a team to solve the MIT Puzzle Hunt, as well. Thankfully, there are 53 people on that team- while I do like the opportunity to dive into a universe of puzzles, Puzzle Boat 2 showed me that unless you’re willing to focus a ridiculous amount of time on a challenge like this, it’s going to take at least a month.
Chess hasn’t gone away, either. I’ve been playing some “daily” games in which you have quite a long time to respond with your next move- it’s a good way to do it with a busy schedule. Chess.com has been a great interface for learning and playing the game.
I’m happy to be getting back to some of my creative endeavors, too. I’ve got a simple online escape room game I’m developing, and I would like to get that card game I was working on out the door, if even just a limited run.
I still need to go back and dive into the story of Red Bull Discovery Lab and tell the tale of that adventure. But it’s a story for another day!
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