Presidential Money Solution
How It Works
Teams get a 11x17 piece of paper with a large color 20 dollar bill. The bill has as border that they decode as 6 bit binary. There is a larger set of bits at in the upper row, and a smaller set of bits in the lower row. The larger ones indicate the numer of the president(1 Washington, etc). The smaller ones are the offset into that presidents last name. There are several clues on the bill to point them to presidents last name.
The serial number is PR51994512Ts, which is the alpha offset for PRESIDENTs.
The THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE is changed to 'THIS NOTE IS EGAL TENDER FOR LL DEBT , PUBLIC AND PRIVA E' which clues them to LAST
The UNITED STATES FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM seal is missing letters and reads 'U ITED ST TES FEDERAL RESERV SYSTE ' which clues them into NAME.
Solution
- See PRESIDENTs( PR 5 19 9 4 5 12 Ts )
- See LAST & NAME
- See border, and that it has six bits then six bits then six bits.
- See that there is an upperlarger border and a lower/smaller boarder
- Decode the larger portion of the border as binary to get 18, 26, 34, 3, 37.
- Use those numbers to get a president Grant(18), Roosevelt(26), Eisenhower(34), Jefferson(3), Nixon(37).
- Decode the smaller items as binary to 1, 1, 1, 2, 1.
- Offset the smaller items into the presidents last name: (G)rant(18,1), (R)oosevelt(26,1), (E)isenhower(34,1), J(e)fferson(3,2), (N)ixon(37,1).
- See this as GREEN
- Notice that there is a border cell with no break between the upper and lower row and treat it like a space.
- Discover that it is easy to parrallelize with people taking sections of it to solve
- Continue Solving to get 'Green Star Dollar Store Everett Mall'
| 18 | 26 | 34 | 3 | 37 | _ | 1 | 10 | 2 | 32 | _ | 2 | 5 | 16 | 22 | 6 | 40 | _ | 34 | 12 | 11 | 18 | 35 | _ | 40 | 22 | 14 | 21 | 22 | 27 | 33 | _ | 4 | 21 | 24 | 42 |
| Grant | Roosevelt | Eisenhower | Jefferson | Nixon | _ | Washington | Tyler | Adams | Roosevelt | _ | Adams | Monroe | Lincoln | Cleveland | Adams | Reagan | _ | Eisenhower | Taylor | Polk | Grant | Kennedy | _ | Reagan | Cleveland | Pierce | Arthur | Cleveland | Taft | Truman | _ | Madison | Arthur | Cleveland | Clinton |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | _ | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | _ | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | _ | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | _ | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | _ | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| G | R | E | E | N | _ | S | T | A | R | _ | D | O | L | L | A | R | _ | S | T | O | R | E | _ | E | V | E | R | E | T | T | _ | M | A | L | L |
Design Notes
How many times did I have to tell people about the supreme court ruling about reproducing color money?
Puzzle Expected Length: 45 Minutes
Puzzle Beta Average Length: 50 Minutes
Puzzle Actual Average Length: 97 Minutes
GC Notes
From call logs: "broken up barcode at top?" "stuck on braille for a long time" "said that they want to chew on binary for awhile" "wrong (Jackson-Hewlett Tax Center)"