Atlasphere

Owner:

Nick

Solution:

ALPS

Partial Answers

LAS: Keep going

Las Vegas: Focus on "LAS"

McCarran: Focus on "LAS"

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

Teams walk up to a piece of luggage with a luggage tag on it. When they reach the luggage, a giant ball is rolled after them. Once that piece of theater is complete, they will be given the luggage tag, which has the following data written on it (the periods are not a typo, they are intentional)…

AAES

ACIL

ACJN

ACLX

ADHI.

BCIN.

BDPX

BGJN

DEKM

DNSY

EEEZ

EFHL

EKMP

HIST

NORT.

????

…as well as the ball, which they will notice has some markings on it - two circles on opposite ends from each other with arrows on them, and 15 dots. Picture this, but giant (7-feet tall), without the UPC code, and brown. It is constructed as a brown cloth covering over a giant beach ball, and the cloth is created of six equal sized "wedges" sewn together (which becomes useful later).

Walkthrough:

The ball is a representation of a globe - the circles are the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, the arrows point north and are at the Prime Meridian. The dots represent various cities in the world.

The presentation of a luggage tag is meant to hint at the meaning of the lines of text on it - they are scrambled airport codes. Each line is a standard IATA three-letter airport code with an extra letter, then alphabetized. Each of those codes represents one of the cities on the globe. Using the dots and the scrambled lines, they should be able to identify the airport codes, bouncing back and forth between positions of the dots and the lines they haven't yet figured out. This is further aided by the fact that the extra added letters to each line are unique - one of each letter between A and O has been added to a line.

Here is the complete data, sorted by the extra letter, as teams need to do, and including longitude and latitude if you need it for some reason.

AAES = SEA + A (Seattle) - 47.443592, -122.302780

BDPX = PDX + B (Portland) - 45.587057, -122.588592

ACLX = LAX + C (Los Angeles) - 33.943203, -118.403702

ADHI. = IAH + D (Houston) - 29.987837, -95.338463

EEEZ = EZE + E (Buenos Aires) - -34.779331, -58.524689

EFHL = HEL + F (Helsinki) - 60.311443, 24.970612

BGJN = JNB + G (Johannesburg) - -26.142715, 28.237059

HIST = IST + H (Istanbul) - 40.977684, 28.820276

BCIN. = BCN + I (Barcelona) - 41.297863, 2.074398

ACJN = ANC + J (Anchorage) - 61.175556, -149.983871

DEKM = DME + K (Moscow) - 55.419071, 37.886600

ACIL = CAI + L (Cairo) - 30.125080, 31.399660

EKMP = PEK + M (Beijing) - 40.081577, 116.587921

DNSY = SYD + N (Sydney) - -33.941044, 151.174637

NORT. = TNR + O (Antananarivo) - -18.796940, 47.478890

You'll notice that these are grouped into three sets - the periods at the end of three of the lines is the separator that indicates these sets.

Once the locations are known and the sets are known, the next step is to draw lines between the specified points (harkening to the flight scenes in the Indiana Jones movies). Doing this will spell out the letter "LAS" on the globe.

The refers to one more airport, but is not the final answer. Teams need to do what was done to the rest of the airport codes - add a letter and alphabetize. In this case, the next letter in the sequence, 'P', should be added. After alphabetizing, you get the final answer, "ALPS".

Hinting:

There are a few steps involved, and each one has various hints built into the puzzle that you can nudge teams toward.

  1. Figure out what the ball represents.

    1. Why are there two circles near the ends and the lines with arrows pointing the same direction? What might those represent?

    2. Why was there a piece of carry-on luggage involved?

    3. What kind of a sphere often has dots on it?

  1. Figure out what the lines on the baggage tag represent.

    1. Why are they on a baggage tag? What are strings of letters generally found on these?

    2. Why are they all in alphabetical order --> hints at them being scrambles.

    3. Do you notice how many lines there are and how many dots are on the sphere?

    4. There is one dot for each line … how might you represent different cities with a few letters?

    5. Do you notice any clusters of dots that look familiar, or any lines of text that look familiar?

      1. Generally, teams notice the SEA-PDX-LAX pattern pretty easily, and these letters also stand out on the baggage tag, particularly because SEA is in the first line.

  1. Identify all of the airport codes/cities.

    1. If they're having trouble with this, helping them notice the pattern of A through O in the added letters is the most helpful thing to do. Ask them which ones they've found and whether they’ve noticed a pattern in those yet.

      1. For instance: DNSY could only be D + NSY in some order or N + DSY. If they've already identified the D, then it has to be the N.

  1. Figure out the ordering.

    1. If they haven't noticed they need to reorder, ask why the lines are in alphabetical order. That is a hint that they are scrambled, just like the alphabetization within the lines.

    2. They've generally noticed the A-O pattern by now, but if not, help them to find this.

  1. Figure out groupings.

    1. Ask them if they are not using any of the data on the baggage tag yet - once they notice and think about the periods, they generally figure this out.

  1. Figure out to draw lines between points.

    1. Why was this on carry-on luggage again?

    2. What happened on maps with dots in the movies?

  1. What to do with "LAS"

    1. What happened to all the other airport codes in this puzzle?

    2. What letter makes sense to add next?

Data:

See above.