M&M Brownies Solution

How It Works

The first step to this puzzle is rearranging the brownies back into a single shape from which to work from. You are able to easily match up the center four columns, but then are left with two more ambiguous red and brown columns.

If you notice that it is possible to layout the brownies such that there is a brown border around the entire set, then you can place a few more pieces. At this point, you need to start looking at the M&Ms on the top.

The M&Ms are roughly in rainbow order and you have to either notice that there seem to be letters formed by the M&Ms or think about the fact that red and yellow make orange when mixed.  Once you get the A or the R, you can apply the same principle to confirm where the red columns go and get the final answer.

Solution

Final answer - HARD

Design Notes

This was based on a puzzle used as the t-shirt puzzle in Intern Puzzleday 2000 that used the same color mixing properties. The thought was that this puzzle would something simple because there were not complex encodings like various cryptic cyphers and it would give teams sugar in the middle of the night to help with the late night hump. The answer was meant as a fun throwback to the Puzzleday puzzle (that answer was EASY) and so I thought it would be fun to have the answer be HARD in this version. Unfortunatly, that is exactly how the puzzle turned out.

GC Notes

Fielding calls in the middle of the night, I realized that the story piece that was given out at this puzzle was named Hennesy; who is a big name in Electrical Engineering. This made some people think that resister colors might be involved. Oops...our bad.