Sudden Arboreal Stop

Owner:

Nick

Solution:

GREENLAND (arbitrary, handed out on success by proctor)

Partial Answers

None

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

Teams arrive to the Fabrikamp Arboretum, where they see 8 "trees" made of craft materials, each labelled with the type of tree that it is. They are told by the groundskeeper that the arboretum is still a work in progress and there are trees that they'd like to add to the collection, which the teams need to help with. Teams are handed an arrival code (which has their team label on it) as well as a sheet with three trees that don't exist yet (STAFF NOTE: These sheets are unlabeled, and are deliberately stacked to prevent teams working at the same time from having the same trees - there are 5 different sets of goal trees, and the stack in the envelope rotates them, so just give out the top sheet in the stack each time a team starts the puzzle), along with a pot for planting them in, then are pointed to a pile of materials they can use to construct trees with. As teams finish constructing each tree, they can bring it back to the groundskeeper for judging. When a team has finished constructing all three of their designated trees successfully, the groundskeeper gives them their final answer.

Walkthrough:

This is a logical deduction puzzle based on observing properties of the reference trees and deducing which properties of the tree name/type relate to which properties of the physical tree. Each tree has a name that looks something like this:

Red North American Bay Cedar (Adult)

There are 6 relevant properties to the name that correlate to physical tree properties:

The specifics of each of these mappings is in the Data section below.

By looking at the reference trees, teams can deduce both the properties that matter and the possible values of each, and then can come up with the necessary properties of the trees that they need to build. There is, of course, a catch. In some cases, some properties of the trees that they are asked to build do not match any of the reference values; in these cases, they have to infer a reasonable way to represent that hybrid value given what they know - there are various ways to do this and the groundskeeper can use their discretion on whether the team has satisfied this or not. One example of this is with branch color. Only red, blue, yellow, and green branches are provided, but teams may be asked to create a purple tree. This can be done by alternating red and blue branches, gluing red and blue branches together, coloring a branch with a purple marker, or even writing "Purple" on a branch.

Hinting:

There have been no hints ever asked for on this puzzle. However, the staffing reference sheet has guidance on how to tell teams something is wrong, if they're taking a while. Early in puzzle solving, you should just say wrong. But as teams take longer, you can be more specific about what is wrong using that guidance.

Changes Since Beta/RC:

No changes.

Data:

Here are the correlations for each of the properties listed above:

Here are the reference trees - handy if you need to repair them:

Pictures for reference:

Green European Pine

Green Reno Balsam Fir

Yellow Argentinean Maple

Red Bogota Pomegranate

Blue Chinese Pin Oak

Blue French Plum

Yellow Nara Clingstone Peach

Red North American Bay Cedar

And here are the trees that teams have to build - each team gets one tree from each section here.