Bows Microsoft Intern Game 2013 Author: Christine Moeller (cmoeller) Construction: Christine Moeller, Jon Caruana, Greg Filpus, Andy Rich, Alex MacGregor, Travis Snoozy On-site Staff: Emily Egeland, Ross Snider, Ben Randall, Shane Lile Presentation Teams are provided with the following: 1 white box with lid. On the lid is a giant bow. (approx. 12 diameter.) Note: The bow is made up of 12 strips of laminated poster and 1 strip of laminated blank white paper. The poster can be seen here: http://www.amazon.com/safari-ltd- Map-Laminated-Poster/dp/B002SVQ5VM/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1369876130&sr=8-7&keywords=map+of+the+sky Instructions for construction of the puzzle appear near the end of this guide. 2 copies of the handout (4 pages each), on paper crumpled within the box. A copy of the handout appears on the last 4 pages of this guide. 2 black wet-erase expo markers, also within the box. Handout Details Note: No internet access or external resources are required for puzzle completion. In the handout, there are 4 pages. 2 pages are a list of exciting destinations. These are formatted like this: Near h, Atik in PERSEUS Each destination has Near h at the start of the line. Each destination has a location. These locations are named stars or nebula that are called out on the star chart they have been given. 2 pages are lists of Tours. There is one page for Northern Tours and one page of Southern Tours. These are formatted like this: 4 'Polaris' in The Little Dipper 'Regulus' in LEO 'El Nath' in TAURUS
Each Tour is a set of 2-4 destinations. Each destination is specified with directions that allow it to be found based on the set of constellations and keys on the star chart they have been given. Please see Handout Language for a full description of these directions. Southern and Northern tours take place in their respective hemispheres, with no overlap/crossing between them. This helps facilitate parallelization, without having to get in each other s ways. Photo used with permission from Claire Lee on team Sky Blue.
How it Works Handout Language All constellations are listed in all capital letters. Other major celestial objects are listed in the casing given on the star chart that they are given. The term in is used to mean this star is used as part of the constellation. The phrase in the vicinity of is used to mean something like this location falls within the dotted line boundary that indicates the section of sky designated to this constellation. On their star chart, the map is divided into irregular sections by dotted lines. Generally one constellation per area. Ambiguities here have been avoided where possible. The goal is that teams can find the item. The terms North Galatic Pole and South Galatic Pole are intentionally spelled Galatic instead of Galactic. The key on the star chart lists these terms, as spelled here, and abbreviations NGP and SGP for what appears on the map. Note: These locations are NOT the centers of the two hemispheres. They are marked with yellow crosshairs and the appropriate abbreviations. The terms Type F and Type O/B refer to a key on the left side of the star chart that gives each star a letter classification and color based on its temperature. For example, a type O/B star is indicated with a Blue color on the star chart. The terms coldest star or hottest star refers to the same key as above. Stars are given a color based on their temperature ranges. The hottest stars are blue, the coldest stars are red. The term Magnitude 3 star refers to a separate key on the right side of the star chart. This key gives a number for the brightness of the star. Brighter stars are represented with sun shapes and stars on the map. Dimmer stars are represented with small circles. Globular Clusters, Open Clusters, and Nebulae all have appropriate symbols indicated in the key on the star chart. Solve Path Step 1: Teams should immediately notice that their bow is a star chart that has been cut into ribbons. There are 12 strips that can be assembled in a straightforward way using the orientation of the text and the outline of the 2 hemispheres. They should disassemble the bow and reconstruct the Map of the Sky poster. Step 2: NOTE: The flavor text tries to imply that this step should occur first, but teams may work slightly out of order. That s okay. Teams should read the enclosed handout. They should notice the Near h at the start of each line on 2 pages of their handout. Upon inspecting the star chart, they will hopefully notice that these indicate the small hour markers that are found on the edge of each hemisphere. These numbers are printed on the map as 1h, 2h, 3h, etc. through 0h/24h. As a note, these numbers are indicating the right
ascension of the galactic coordinate system (using the right hand rule), sometimes measured in hours and minutes. This terminology is not needed for the puzzle, but could be used to help explain to a team that has been using the internet for searching. Once teams have gotten where to find the h numbers, they can start filling these out. Two copies of the handout are provided to help parallelize this process. To find the appropriate number to fill in the blank, teams are supposed to find the celestial object specified, then find whatever ascension line is closest to the object. For example, a star that is closest to the 4h line should be 4, whether it is on the right or the left of the line. NOTE: Even though a star may be closest to 4h, it is possible for teams to read a location as 3h 50m and truncate this to 3h instead of noting that it is closest to 4h as intended. This is something that could cause noise in their data for step 3. Step 3: This is the first leap. From numbers between 1 h and 0/24 h, teams need to realize that those are letters between A=1 and X=24. (Note: The letter X is not used, so teams will not need to decide what 0/24 means.) Once the numbers are converted into letters, the following can be used for data confirmation: Solves to: DRAWTOURSTHENARRANGEMAPSTRIPNUMBERS 11 7 5 12 NOTE: The final 4 numbers should be interpreted as NUMBERS, not letters. As letters, these are KGEL. The phrase hints numbers explicitly, but this can be a catching point for some teams. Near 4 h, Atik in PERSEUS Near 18 h, Sargas in SCORPIUS Near 1 h, Deneb Kaitos in CETUS Near 23 h, Markab in PEGASUS Near 20 h, Altair in SAGITTA Near 15 h, Kochab in URSA MINOR Near 21 h, Alderamin in CEPHEUS Near 18 h, The Eagle Nebula in the vicinity of SERPENS CAUDA Near 19 h, Vega in the vicinity of LYRA Near 20 h, Sadr in the vicinity of CYGNUS Near 8 h, Avior in CARINA Near 5 h, Hassaleh in AURIGA Near 14 h, Alkaid in URSA MAJOR Near 1 h, Mirach in the vicinity of ANDROMEDA Near 18 h, Kaus Australis in SAGITTARIUS Near 18 h, Eltanin in DRACO Near 1 h, The Small Magellanic Cloud in the vicinity of TUCANA Near 14 h, Menkent in CENTAURUS Near 7 h, Sirius in CANIS MAJOR Near 5 h, Almaaz in AURIGA Near 13 h, Alioth in URSA MAJOR
Near 1 h, South Galatic Pole Near 16 h, Acrab in SCORPIUS Near 19 h, Ascella in SAGITTARIUS Near 20 h, Dabih in CAPRICORNUS Near 18 h, The Lagoon Nebula in the vicinity of SAGITTARIUS Near 9 h, Alsuhail in VELA Near 16 h, Unukalhai in SERPENS CAPUT Near 14 h, Arcturus near BOÖTES Near 21 h, Gienah in CYGNUS Near 13 h, Cor Caroli in CANES VENATICI Near 2 h, Hamal in ARIES Near 5 h, Capella in AURIGA Near 18 h, Shaula in SCORPIUS Near 19 h, Nunki in SAGITTARIUS Near 11 h, Dubhe in URSA MAJOR Near 7 h, Adhara in CANIS MAJOR Near 5 h, Rigel in ORION Near 12 h, Minkar in CORVUS Step 4: NOTE: It is possible/likely that teams may do this in advance of steps 2 and 3 because 2 markers are included with their puzzle. This implies that they will need to draw on the map. Teams will notice that there are Tours grouped into sets of 2-4 destinations. The partial solution to Step 3 will give them DRAW TOURS. Teams are then intended to start at the first destination in a tour, and draw a straight line to each subsequent destination in that tour in the order given. This will result in several crisscrossing line segments by the time all tours are drawn. NOTE: Each tour should not be connected to its preceding or subsequent tours. The tour should include n-1 connected straight lines for a tour with n destinations. Tours do not loop back to the beginning after the final destination, so there is a distinct start and end. Step 5: The full solution to Step 3 has given teams DRAW TOURS THEN ARRANGE MAP STRIP NUMBERS 11 7 5 12. After drawing tours from the handout, teams are intended to number the map strips from 1 to 12, top to bottom. Then they should disassemble/remove strips 11, 7, 5, and 12, and place them in that order. Strips 11 and 12 of the map are on a black background, while most of the poster is on a dark blue background. These strips are intended as a frame. The contents of these strips show the Zodiac.
Strips 7 and 5 contain line segments from the drawing of the tours. When you view these strips together in this orientation, the word TWINS is spelled out from these line segments. This should be a partial answer that hints there s one last short jump. NOTE: It s possible for teams to worry they ve done the wrong thing, since strips 11 and 12 are not used in the first part of this puzzle. It is also possible for teams to skip them, since they did not draw on them, and only look at strips 7 and 5. It should still be possible to solve the puzzle without these, since they are only used for hinting. Photo used with permission from Johnny Lee Othon on team Reddish -Orangeish. Step 6: Final short step: The constellation known as the twins is GEMINI (Solution). This is strongly hinted by the use of constellations throughout the puzzle, as well as the Zodiac frame of strips 11 and 12. The Zodiac portion of the star chart has the common drawings of each constellation, in addition to the outline that is generally unrecognizable. The GEMINI constellation happens to fall in the center of these strips as well, so the answer is right there when they read TWINS. Solution GEMINI
Construction This map: http://www.amazon.com/safari-ltd-map-laminated- Poster/dp/B002SVQ5VM/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1369876130&sr=8-7&keywords=map+of+the+sky (I used the non-laminated, 36 x24 version) Cut into 12 2 by 36 strips. I laminated each strip individually, so that a wet-erase marker can be wiped off without risking the integrity of the poster. Note that a pre-laminated and then cut poster would still absorb water at the edges, and we wanted to be sure that inclement weather wouldn t cause problems. The 12 strips are then formed into a bow using a variation of this tutorial: http://offbeatbride.com/2012/08/how-to-make-a-freakin-huge-bow The strips should not be cut to shorter lengths, but instead shortened by overlapping the ends more and more for each layer. The center loop is not part of the poster, due to this being complicated in reconstruction. Instead, a plain or decorated piece of paper can be used (laminated, for texture consistency). Once the bow is constructed, it is taped to a box. I used these in a 12 size: http://www.containerstore.com/shop/giftpackaging/giftboxes?productid=10003735&n=63758 The box with bow is then filled with 2 copies of the handout, crinkled up for annoyance/ tissue paper feel, and 2 wet-erase expo markers.
Centaurus Tours hears that your planet may be interested in intergalactic vacations. Here is a list of some of our most exciting destinations! Once you have had a chance to review them, please find enclosed a list of our upcoming itineraries, (from your point of view, of course). Near h, Atik in PERSEUS Near h, Sargas in SCORPIUS Near h, Deneb Kaitos in CETUS Near h, Markab in PEGASUS Near h, Altair in SAGITTA Near h, Kochab in URSA MINOR Near h, Alderamin in CEPHEUS Near h, The Eagle Nebula in the vicinity of SERPENS CAUDA Near h, Vega in The Summer Triangle Near h, Sadr in the vicinity of CYGNUS Near h, Avior in CARINA Near h, Hassaleh in AURIGA Near h, Alkaid in URSA MAJOR Near h, Mirach in the vicinity of ANDROMEDA Near h, Kaus Australis in SAGITTARIUS Near h, Eltanin in DRACO Near h, The Small Magellanic Cloud in the vicinity of TUCANA
Near h, Menkent in CENTAURUS Near h, Sirius in CANIS MAJOR Near h, Almaaz in AURIGA Near h, Alioth in URSA MAJOR Near h, South Galatic Pole Near h, Acrab in SCORPIUS Near h, Ascella in SAGITTARIUS Near h, Dabih in CAPRICORNUS Near h, The Lagoon Nebula in the vicinity of SAGITTARIUS Near h, Alsuhail in VELA Near h, Unukalhai in SERPENS CAPUT Near h, Arcturus near BOÖTES Near h, Gienah in CYGNUS Near h, Cor Caroli in CANES VENATICI Near h, Hamal in ARIES Near h, Capella in AURIGA Near h, Shaula in SCORPIUS Near h, Nunki in SAGITTARIUS Near h, Dubhe in URSA MAJOR Near h, Adhara in CANIS MAJOR Near h, Rigel in ORION Near h, Minkar in CORVUS
NORTHERN TOURS 1 North Galatic Pole near COMA BERENICES 'Scheat' in PEGASUS 2 The Pleiades in the vicinity of TAURUS 'Capella' in AURIGA 3 Globular Cluster M13 in the vicinity of HERCULES End of DRACO with the colder star 4 'Polaris' in The Little Dipper 'Regulus' in LEO 'El Nath' in TAURUS 5 End of LYNX with the hotter star 'Algenib' in PEGASUS 6 Coldest star in TRIANGULUM Open Cluster M36 in the vicinity of AURIGA 7 Hottest star in CAMELOPARDALIS 'Algol' in PERSEUS
SOUTHERN TOURS 1 Hottest star in NORMA Center of the Large Magellanic Cloud 2 Star in ERIDANUS nearest to -10 Latitude Open Cluster M48 in the vicinity of HYDRA 3 Dschubba' in SCORPIUS Coldest star in MUSCA Kaus Australis in SAGITTARIUS 4 South Galatic Pole near SCULPTOR Peacock in PAVO End of AQUARIUS nearest to Dabih in CAPRICORNUS 5 South Galatic Pole near SCULPTOR End of ANTLIA nearest to CORVUS Magnitude 3 star of type O/B in PUPPIS 6 Coldest star in HYDRUS Type F star in ERIDANUS nearest to -20 Latitude Mira in CETUS Coldest star in PYXIS