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Clue 19 Solution: Hex Cups

How the Clue Works

First off, the small sheet with the message was a primer, which provided three hints:

  1. The words are arranged in a 3x3 grid, which is a clue to arrange the cups this way.
  2. The word "bits" is a clue that the hex numbers inside the cups need to be converted to binary.
  3. The word 'together' is another hint to use the cups together in a grid. no useful can be extracted from a single cup by itself.

Next, teams needed to notice that the arrangements of numbers on the bottom of the cups are such that, for each number 1-9, you can arrange the cups in a 3x3 grid: 

        c1 c2 c3
        
        c4 c5 c6
        
        c7 c8 c9
such that the number in position N on the bottom of the cup is the same as the number of the position of the cup. (if this is confusing, look at the grids, see where all the 1's are, and it should become clearer).

After this, the hex numbers inside the cups come into play. Teams needed to notice that the hex numbers inside the cups were all nine digits (well technically two are just eight digits but they merely began with a 0).

Noticing now that that there are nine bits per cup, and nine arrangements, the solution involved putting these two together. For each arrangement, the nth bit (counting from the left when written in binary) tells you whether that cup is "on" or "off" for that arrangement.

When teams arranged the cups in their 3x3 grid and marked which were "on" or "off", the 3x3 grid spelled out letters.

The Solution

Repeating this process for all nine arrangements yielded the letters "CAFEXLIII", or Cafe 43.

Design Notes

GC Notes

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