Your Call Is Very Important To Us

Owner:

Alex

Solution:

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

Partial Answers

INVENTOR OF TELEPHONE: Keep going!

2546952324317514568: That looks right! Now, how about you try some indexing?

GRAHAM, BELL, or GRAHAM BELL: Give us the full name please!

GC Notes:

GC to update day-of-game.

Presentation:

Teams will be given the following page:

https://1drv.ms/w/s!AtOyaPOKD3xThJwkELhN4aUT9mNYfw

Make sure to view this doc in desktop Word, Online does not render it properly. Teams can start at any node, but to help them out I put in a picture of a phone pointing to the node at the top, so they don't rathole on where to get started.

Walkthrough:

1. Teams call the phone number given on the sheet that they receive at the beginning.

2. Teams (usually) traverse the entire phone tree. They need to take note of three important things in each node:

   1. The name of the node they are currently on

   2. The robot voice talking to them at the other end (or the name of the robot voice. Each voice also introduces itself at the beginning of every room.)

   3. The numbers they can press to get to other rooms, as well as which room they go to which rooms they go to

1. Teams can fill out the diagram at this point. Because the graph is symmetric, there are multiple valid graphs. One way to do this is to find a five-node cycle, put those nodes in any five-node cycle in the printed graph, and work outward from there.

2. The important thing with this puzzle is that there is only one possible way, starting from the first room, to visit every node such that:

   1. You visit every node exactly once

   2. You visit every node for a single voice before going to a node with a different voice. For example, if the nodes have voices A, B, and C, you must visit every node with voice A before going on to B. Examples:

      1. AAAABBBB is valid

      2. AABBBBAA is not valid

      3. ABABABAB is not valid

      4. BBBBAAAA is valid

1. Each voice also has a name that introduces itself at the beginning of the maze. The four names are Peter, Alice, Tracy, and Harold. The first letter of each of these four names spells PATH, which should help teams determine both that they need to make a path through the maze, and the order in which to traverse the different voices to successfully solve the maze.

2. Once you find the good path through the maze, index into the name of the node with the number you pressed to get to that node to get the letter for the solution. The very first node that you visit when you first call the phone tree doesn't count (since you didn't press a number to get there).

   1. If the team goes into the phone tree and traverses the correct path, the system will tell them that they got the right path and to try indexing, and then hang up.

Hinting:

1. Teams may not immediately realize that the voices are important. Every node mentions voice in its flavor text, and the document that they get mentions voice as well. If they call GC and don't seem to have realized that the voice is important, see if they noticed that voice has been a repeating theme throughout the phone tree.

2. Sometimes, teams have taken note of all the voices, but haven't realized that they can make a path through the phone tree.

Tech Notes:

1. Every node sounds like the following. "This is [person name] from the Department of [room name]. [Pause for 1 second.] [Flavor text]. Please choose from the following options so we can route your call. Press [number1] to reach the Department of [room name 1]. Press [number2] to reach the Department of [room name 2]. Press [number3] to reach the Department of [room name 3].

2. Teams may press a number after the 1 second pause. Any input before that is ignored.

3. If teams reach the end of the phrase and don't press anything, the text will repeat after 10 seconds.

4. If teams press #, the text will repeat.

5. If teams press a number that is not one of [number1], [number2], or [number3], the phone will say "Sorry, that is not a valid option." and the room text will repeat.

Changes Since Beta/RC:

• The name of the puzzle has changed from Robocalling Home to Your Call Is Very Important To Us.

• All references to Camp Northwind have been replaced with Fabrikamp.

• All Department names are now one word instead of a phrase, and the indexing has changed to be based on the letters in that one word as opposed to the first letter of each word in the phrase.

• Each voice now has an associated name. The names are Peter, Alice, Tracy and Harold; the first letter of these names spell PATH, denoting that the solution for the maze goes through Peter, then Alice, then Tracy, then Harold.

• If a team traverses all of the rooms in the maze in the correct order, the phone tree will tell them that they have the correct order, and that they should try indexing.

Data:

This is a diagram of the graph that the phone tree represents. Teams start at node A:

• Note: the nodes that are connected to each other are always the same, but the layout on the graph will be different. Most teams will have node A at the very top, but even with the position of A fixed, B could be any of the three nodes connected to A.

Important Stuff (Solution):

Possible Paths (table entry is the number entered to get to that node). The happy path is highlighted. Note for puzzle author: The three rooms that any one room connects to must be maintained, but the number pressed to execute that traversal can change. For example, A must be connected to Q, B, and H, but the number entered to get to any of those can change.

Weave Got Friends, I Guess