2015: The Year of the Dragon
(Check out some photos!)
It's Puzzlepalooza time again, and this year a terrible dragon has petnapped the Princess's precious cuddly pet! In 2015, students in 16 teams competed to slay the horrible puzzling beast.
Two days of puzzling were accomplished at Blair, and then the teams moved to the finale of an all-day puzzling extraviganza at Bohrer Park in Gaithersburg. Being aspiring Puzzle Knights, students also had to overcome physical challenges, as well as the eighteen puzzles in this year's puzzle packet.
Finally, the Puzzle Packet lead each team to choose up to eighteen items to feed the dragon as the Brave Heroes snuck ever closer to the fell wyrm. The Teams' Heroes then attempted to slay the beast with bow and arrow. And finally, after a day of Puzzling sweat and toil, an arrow from one time struck true, and the Corsairs of Umbar were declared this year's Puzzlepalooza Champions! Congratulations to Team Champion Catherine Xue, Team Hero and Dragon Slayer Benjamin Safford, and the rest of the Corsairs: Alexander Brassel, Saloni Dalal, Angel Fan, Michelle Hao, Eli Hartman, Thomas Humphreys, Desiree Lejano, Olivia Lewis, Eric Neyman, Tuyet Nguyen, Anna Ou, Divya Rajagopal, Aaron Szabo, Bronte Wen, and Josephine Yu.
As with other years, the Puzzle Lords had several favorite puzzles in this contest; here are three:
Easy-Medium | Medium | Hard
...and the answers.
The specifics? Here they are:
[click to enlarge]
Perhaps the most sought-after prize after winning itself is The Coveted Spirit Award. This year the team of The Uncouth Band of Miscreants and Desperados Hailing from Arkansas, Oklahoma took the prize:
The First Losers Prize went to The Fierce Cadets of the Amazonian Queendom of 'Merica; they had the most points going into the final event, but, alas!, were unable to hit the dragon on their two attempts.
Like many puzzle tournaments, there are ways to get hints in Puzzlepalooza...the
team that gets the fewest hints with the best results is awarded The
Iron Puzzler award; this year team Moredoor managed to come in third place in points without taking any hints at all; a remarkable feat.
Other awards included Best Team Name, The Order of the Sleepless Knights from the Kingdom of Northslumberland, the Best Motto with "Celer brunnea vulpes salit super ignavum canem" from the team of the Alphabetic Order of Letters, the best name for the Princess and her Pet was Princess Meat Eating Corporate America and her pet dragon Bessie from the Knights of PETA of Kingdom Animalia, and the Best Coat of Arms from the Dames of Dante of the Kingdom Inferno.
Finally, the Puzzle Lords would like to acknowledge all the alumni and parental volunteers who came out to help use keep things working smoothly and efficently...we couldn't have done it without you!