Mystery Hunt begins tomorrow by Matt McGann '00
A fun puzzle to solve.
The annual Mystery Hunt (history here) begins tomorrow at 12:17pm in MIT’s Lobby 7.
To give you a flavor of the Hunt, I decided I’d post here one of last year’s most clever puzzles (this was just one of 114 puzzles from last year), one I think you’ll enjoy.
Like many Mystery Hunt puzzles, this one comes with no instructions, no hints, no introduction. It does, however, come with a title: “Cookie Monster.”
The answer, by the way, will be a six-letter word. Good luck, have fun, don’t cheat, and don’t spoil the fun too much! Solution tomorrow.
If you finish that one, here are a few more you might like:
Drawing Conclusions I: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/02/round7/08/Puzzle.html
Dogs Playing Poker: https://normalville.org/setec/dogs_playing_poker/
An Ax To Grind: https://normalville.org/setec/an_ax_to_grind/
The Duck Konundrum: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/00/set5/6/Puzzle.html
D2: The Mighty Duck Konundrum: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/02/round2/04/Puzzle.html
D3: The Fellowship of the Duck: https://normalville.org/setec/duck3/
Isn’t it MCGANN?
Stop it please, my stomach is fighting hard with my brain… Cookie or solution ?
TeTeC, hungry (in both cases…).
I think my brain imploded just from looking at that.
Let’s try this again, then?
MIT is yummy?
Hey Matt:
I had a lot of fun doing a similar puzzle hunt in the summer. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough money to come to the hunt this year but I will support my team online. I hope you will have a great time this year amist all the application decision-makings.
Sincerely,
Lily
hi,
plz answer this query:i am an engineering first year student in computer science. can i ask subject related queries and where.
thanks
Is it…Beaver?
Oh never mind, I was just looking at the face.
Looks interesting.
I was in a puzzle hunt this summer. There were 300 participants: I think it was fifty teams. There were a lot of suggested answers. My team came up with the most creative. This reminds me of one of the clues provided.
Dear Mr. McGann
I was hoping that you could shed a little light on a certain online tracking of my application. You see, I’m an international Applicant, and therefore am not to fill out the “Mid-Year Grade Report”. However it still shows up as not processed, even though the other US-only section, the “Self-Reported Course Work”, does not even appear on the online tracking. Is this something I should be worried about, or is it not anything to take any particular notice of?
Michael B.
I loved this… took me a while to finnally get it though, ill talk more about it when the solution is revealed.
ermmm…it is
WARNING SPOILER AHEAD!!!
….
….
….
…..
something to do with krotus/Fifth East/ 7.6 ?
Well, the solution can be found in one of the links Matt provided, so if you want to check it, you may do so.
The only thing that’s going through my mind now is “Mmm… cookies.”
…
Nope, still “Mmm… cookies”.
this took me quite a while, especially because i needed to google up some of the cookies, but i got it.
Michael:
The Mid-Year Grade Report shouldn’t worry you as an international student. Someone else (Ben?) already wrote that this is a bug in their online application tracking system and nothing for us to worry about.
Good luck with your application by the way.
Dinyar
I figured out the general concept but I was too ignorant of cookies get the final answer. That’s because if Mitra ever sees any cookies in the suite, she yells at me and throws them out and then eats raw spinach and cottage cheese.
i was way off….
some of the cookies are sooo hard to find…
I’ll go google some more.
Hi Matt,
SO IAP is going on strong. Mystery Hunt is cool dude.
I wanted to ask one thing : can you please tell me about any summer research (not summer schools) programs which are like open to internationals also. I am looking for computer science mainly…also just so u know the thing I once talked abt ‘taking a gap year if not MIT’ is confirmed. I am continuing with my research work and have left other applications so its pretty much MIT for me this year. Which is why I am also looking for good research opportunities to keep myself engaged somewhere.
I also have this confusion about MITES is this program only for minorities or can anyone apply. Like internationals and all.
Cheers
I was on a Mystery Hunt team last year (and this year too – there’s at least one team with high school students on it) and I actually helped solve this puzzle! We got the general idea pretty quickly, but, as abstract noted, some of the cookies have hard-to-find names. We ended up walking to a nearby store and buying a big assortment of cookies that had names on the package. Still, there are a bunch of cookies that look a lot like the circus animals and we kept calling in “CAN BE EKTEN” or the like. But we got the right variation eventually – and celebrated by eating the cookies we’d bought!