Look out for answers to today’s puzzles tomorrow!

Day 1

Here’s a riddle!

A driver speeds down a winding road, The distance known, the time it bestowed. Though speed may vary, a truth I defend, There’s a hidden moment where the slope will transcend.

I judge not the fastest nor the slowest pace, But a point where the change finds its middle space. Though unseen, it exists, a theorem’s decree, This hidden balance, the answer for thee.

What am I?

What’s this?

Marcus’ Pacific Adventure

After SIMC2.0, Marcus decided to go canoeing across the supercalifragilisticexpialidociously wonderful Pacific Ocean, which spans 15,500km (9,600 mi), which Marcus decides to round to 16,000km (10,000mi) as he hates distances that are not very round. However, he has very little energy, so he wants to figure out the least amount of energy he needs to exert to make it across the ocean. Marcus also has his school exams in 20 days, so he wants to make sure that one trip across the ocean is only 10 days.

Marcus enlisted the help of his scientist friend, Anna, to help him calculate the distance he can paddle daily.

He knows that he can paddle an integer k metres in a day (he is not very good at ultra-precise canoeing), and that since he has barely any space to put food on the boat, his metres travelled per day d, also must decrease, according to this:

k/1 + k/2 …… k/9 + k/10

However, Marcus lives in a landlocked country, so Marcus took out a loan and spent a boatload of money on a 1:10000 scale model of the Pacific Ocean. As a result, he can only buy poor quality boats that break after one use. He also wants to minimise the amount of times he falls into his ‘ocean’.

What is:

a) the least amount of boats Marcus needs, and

b) the least amount of metres Marcus needs to paddle on the first day (if he is on the 1:10000 model)?

Now do this crossword!

ACROSS
1 To find your way
4 Sound when you hit, sound with your lips
5 Wash and repeat
7 Sodium hydroxide

DOWN
1 Outlook competitor
2 System for announcements
3 Abbreviation for excuse
6 Abbreviation for the Big Apple

Dance Monkey Concert

After SIMC2.0, there is a Dance Monkey concert happening in Bananaland! Ingrid wishes to go to see his favourite artist while they are touring in Bananaland. 

In Bananaland, their economy is completely bananas! They also do not offer the exchange of currency, hence when Ingrid reaches Bananaland, he is practically penniless. Furthermore, Bananaland even has a 4 banana entrance fee!

At the entrance he picks up the Bananaland Brochure. Help Ingrid get to the theater to see the Dance Monkey concert on time!

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Day 2

Another riddle?!

I am like two-face, but my species is featured in a star trek name; a ghost’s favourite word is in my name, and I’m usually a pessimist. What am I?

Lying on the Road

Samantha and Ingrid just met a girl called Clara while taking a taxi together to the shopping mall.

Samantha and Ingrid are transit fanatics (or possibly stalkers) who want to know what bus number Clara takes to school.

“I take a bus number of 3 digits. All digits are between 1 and 4 in my bus number because I am superstitious. My bus number has a digit sum of 7. The last digit is even.” said Clara.

Clara tells Samantha the first digit of the bus number, and Ingrid the second digit of the bus number.

“I don’t know the bus number,” said Ingrid.

“Oh! Now I know the bus number! Ingrid doesn’t though.”

“Hey! I do know the bus number!” rebuked Ingrid.

Who is lying?

Riddle again!

What is it called when Trigon tried making a half omelet but failed?

SIMCFWAIEODBT

After SIMC2.0, Clara opened a dragon boating club with Marcus, in his 1:10000 model Pacific Ocean, in the process, they opened signup forms to form the newest SIMC’s Fabulous, Wonderful, Amazing, Insightful, Excellent, Outstanding Dragon Boating Team; or SIMCFWAIEODBT for short. 

Their sponsor, the FWAIEODBS (Fabulous, Wonderful, Amazing, Insightful, Excellent, Outstanding Dragon Boating Society) offered to provide them with an unlimited supply of dragon boats, with the caveat that each boat could only hold 4 or 11 people. 

Clara and Marcus believe in the power of friendship, and that everyone should be able to participate. Hence, they want to ensure that every person can participate in any competition the FWAIEODBT joins, given that no one gets sick. Also, the dragon boats must be at full capacity, else they will capsize immediately. How many starting members do they need to ensure that even if any number of new members join, every member would be able to participate in the FWAIEODBC (Fabulous, Wonderful, Amazing, Insightful, Excellent, Outstanding Dragon Boating Competition)?

In other words, what is the minimum amount of people such that 

i) they can be arranged into groups of 4 or 11, and

ii) no matter how many more people are added, they can still be arranged into these groups?

More crosswords!

ACROSS
2 It’s a snake that runs programs
4 Polynomials to a second degree
7 Set of rules in CS
8 _______ for nerds

DOWN
1 Art of breaking codes
3 Greetings from ________
5 Newton and his German counterpart created this
6 1s and 0s

‘Collaborative’ Effort

Samantha is building an art piece for her art gallery, conveniently situated on an island in the middle of Marcus’ Pacific Ocean. Being the eccentric he is, Marcus stipulates that Samantha change her art piece to fit the ‘vibe’ he has going on.

At first, Samantha paints the number 2024……

“No. I want a square number inside it.” Marcus stipulated, his dissatisfaction shining clearly.

Samantha painted over a digit to change it up.

“Mm, not big enough. I want a bigger square number!” 

“I want the 5th power!!!”

“Eh… I want a digit sum of 13!”

“You know what would be nice? A perfect cube!!!”

“Ugh…… it looks wrong. Lower it by one.”

“……not enough…… change the digit sum to 12.”

“ooh… what if… the first half and second half of the number were consecutive?”

“oh! you know what it looks like? the current year! CHANGE IT!”

“wait…… let’s run it back…”

What is the sequence of numbers Samantha painted, given she changed the number one digit at a time?

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Day 3

Can you do this?

Using only addition, use eight 8s to make 1000.

(Reverse) Equationle

This is a variation of Wordle using the same system of hints. Instead of guessing the word and then getting hints, you get two guesses provided for you. Then, you must use the information to guess the equation. 

Hints:

Green – the symbol/digit appears in the answer. It is in the correct position.

Yellow – the symbol/digit appears in the answer, but it is not in the correct position.

Grey – the symbol/digit does not appear in the answer at all.

Disclaimer: While we have spent time testing the problem, it is not a guarantee that the solution is unique. Bonus points if you find a solution that we couldn’t!

Tips:
– The equals sign can be anywhere. Use this to your advantage.
– The minus sign appears twice in the second guess provided. One is labelled green and the other is grey. This means that the minus sign cannot appear twice in the answer, and you know the position it appears.
– No negative numbers appear, but digits that are not used in the clues may still be in the answers. Digits can also appear multiple times, unless the clues show otherwise.

Samantha’s Cipher

Samantha has had enough with hackers intercepting her data. She decides to send an encrypted message to Marcus. Knowing that Marcus is very smart, she decides to give him as little information as possible for decryption. Can you crack the code?

c: 46928213622443123469097690074328728082806820516032793975562

n: 119337986692598647939659482394797649401939472153374378941789

e: 17 

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Day 4

SIMC2.0

It’s that time of the year again…… SIMC2.0! No, silly, not SIMC2.0 in NUSH! This is the Strawberry Ice-Cream Moving Competition 2.0, held in Marcus’ 1:10000 scale Pacific Ocean!

The goal of SIMC2.0 is to transport Strawberry Ice-Cream crates of varying weights across the Pacific Ocean: of 200kg, 500kg, and a whopping 1000kg. The catch is, the boat can only transport two objects (that includes you!) at most at a time, and you only have one boat. Note that you must be at the finish line as well.

Ingrid takes 10 minutes to paddle across the Ocean to the drop-off point. The time taken for the boat to travel across the ocean is (the heaviest thing on the boat/10).

Luckily, Marcus has chipped in with automatic boats and (un)loading systems, which can load the crates without needing Ingrid. Note that the boat cannot change speed, because Marcus didn’t have enough money to afford that feature. Due to a fault in the boat system, it will not run without *something* on it.

Previously, Samantha and Clara both set a joint first place with a time of 170 minutes. Ingrid wishes to beat, or at least tie them. Help Ingrid win SIMC2.0!

SIMC 2.0 Connections

Click the link below to play!

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-NyWM2-TtiI3P4nKO_MB

Hiding in plain sight

Our SIMC logo has been manipulated! It seems that there is a short message encoded within the image. It is up to you to retrieve it!

The answer which you seek lies within each Least Significant Bit of every pixel.

from PIL import Image

image = Image.open('simc.png')
width, height = image.size
assert(width == 8)

hex_values = []

text = 'steganography'

for y in range(height):
    char = ord(text[y]) if y < len(text) else None

    if char:
        for x in range(width):
            bit = (char >> (7-x)) % 2
            r,g,b = image.getpixel((x, y))
            b &= 0b11111110
            b += bit
            image.putpixel((x,y), (r, g, b))

image.save('out.png')

from PIL import Image

image = Image.open('out.png')
width, height = image.size
assert(width == 8)

for y in range(height):
    ans = 0
    for x in range(width):
        r,g,b = image.getpixel((x, y))
        bit = b % 2
        ans += bit
        ans = ans << 1
    ans = ans >> 1
    print(chr(ans))

MorzNotez

Marcus wanted to impress Clara with his musical and cryptographical skills. As such, he decided to send her a song, with a hidden message inside. However, Marcus overestimated Clara, and now Clara wants you to help her find the hidden message. Can you find it?

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Day 5

SIMC2.0 Connections 2

Another one! Click the link below to play!

https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-NycDul-cJ6cs0dfNcTs

Going Bananas

After the Dance Monkey Concert, Ingrid has no more money, and no way out of Bananaland. So, he decides to get a job at the Bananabank. 

At the Bananabank, he needs to collect Bananatax from all of Bananaland’s residents. Note that the grid of Bananaland is now a 4×4 grid, as after the residents of the outer squares went bananas, and separated from Bananaland.

Ingrid needs to visit each house (square) once, and once only, because the residents begrudgingly pay their taxes, and will go bananas if Ingrid returns to their house. Note that Ingrid cannot move houses diagonally.

Thus, he needs to visit all houses only once, before heading to the tax office to deposit the Bananaresidents’ Tax, else he loses his job.

Help Ingrid not lose his job!

Solution to Q2

This is mostly a trick question, as if you do not return to any squares, there is simply no way to get to the Tax Office without missing at least one house. 

The trick is, to return back to the Banana Treasury, after visiting one house, since the Banana Treasury is on your side, and will not go bananas if you return. Once you do this, it is very easy to solve the problem. 

Lying on the Road (Again)

Samantha, Ingrid, Marcus, and Clara, are playing a game while taking Clara’s bus service to go to her house. In this game, Clara needs to figure out the identities of Samantha, Ingrid, and Marcus: one will lie, one will tell the truth, one will either lie or tell the truth randomly.

Ingrid returned from Bananaland, and taught Samantha and Marcus the Banana Language, Bananese. 

In three questions (the bus is nearly at the final stop), Clara must figure out who is lying, who is telling the truth, and who is randomly talking. Note that each question can be only directed to one person. Samantha, Ingrid, and Marcus, will only reply either Ooh-Ooh, or Aah-Aah. Clara does not know which is Yes and which is No.

Can you help Clara win?

Audacity

Marcus couldn’t believe it! How could Clara share his song with someone else? He decided to make a song in revenge, trying to pierce your ears in the process. “The Audacity of these people! I’m going to hide another message to subtly show my annoyance!” Naturally, he named the song Audacity. Can you find the hidden message in Audacity?

Solution to Q4

First, view the song in Audacity. Select the tab for the track, and select spectrogram view.

Answer: spectrogram is mind cracking (omg initials spell out simc again!)

Hope you enjoyed the puzzles!

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