Thread - Announcing "LMI Beginners' Puzzle Contests"

@ 2014-03-10 10:41 PM (#14586 - in reply to #14584) (#14586) Top

Posts: 35

Country : India

mathcrazy posted @ 2014-03-10 10:41 PM

debmohanty - 2014-03-10 9:21 PM

mathcrazy - 2014-03-10 8:49 PM

In Spiral Galaxies, should each region definitely contain a circle? Or can there be regions whose point of symmetry is not shown?

In standard Spiral Galaxies all circles / central points will be given. That means, each region must contain exactly one of the given circles.

As noted in the IB, and as it had happened in the previous beginners' tests, some rules are deviated in the exploratory category. For those puzzles, you need to look at the given example to find out the deviation in rules, if any.

Thanks, that cleared my doubt. Where can I find solving techniques for Spiral Galaxies? There seems to be more than one way of proceeding with each puzzle, and I'm able to realize very late that I proceeded wrongly.

@ 2014-03-11 5:01 AM (#14588 - in reply to #14586) (#14588) Top

chaotic_iak

Posts: 241

Country : Indonesia

chaotic_iak posted @ 2014-03-11 5:01 AM

Basic deductions:
- Two circles that are in adjacent cells have walls between them. Note that a circle is included even if it's only partially inside a cell (at the edge or corner).
- When a circle has a wall adjacent to it, the symmetrically opposite border must also be wall.

Intermediate deductions:
- Keep track of what cells a circle contains. The above two rules apply even for non-circle cells, as long as they belong to different regions.
- Sometimes, a cell is just so far from other circles; try to figure out which circle holds this cell.
- Sometimes intuition helps scoring a quick time.

@ 2014-03-14 5:08 PM (#14604 - in reply to #14588) (#14604) Top

Administrator

Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2014-03-14 5:08 PM

Beginners' contest is delayed - we will post a note when it starts.

@ 2014-03-14 7:33 PM (#14605 - in reply to #10788) (#14605) Top

mathcrazy

Posts: 35

Country : India

mathcrazy posted @ 2014-03-14 7:33 PM

Any pointers on how to proceed with this Spiral Galaxies puzzle after this?

http://oi59.tinypic.com/27zlzll.jpg

@ 2014-03-14 7:55 PM (#14606 - in reply to #14605) (#14606) Top

greenhorn

Posts: 164

Country : Slovakia

greenhorn posted @ 2014-03-14 7:55 PM

mathcrazy - 2014-03-14 7:33 PM

Any pointers on how to proceed with this Spiral Galaxies puzzle after this?

http://oi59.tinypic.com/27zlzll.jpg

Cells C12-R8,9,10 are in the same region, for example.

@ 2014-03-14 8:29 PM (#14607 - in reply to #14605) (#14607) Top

swaroop2011

Posts: 668

Country : India

swaroop2011 posted @ 2014-03-14 8:29 PM

also c14 r1 and r2 have only one choice .. basically find some cells which can go in unique way. :)

mathcrazy - 2014-03-14 7:33 PM

Any pointers on how to proceed with this Spiral Galaxies puzzle after this?

http://oi59.tinypic.com/27zlzll.jpg

@ 2014-03-14 8:37 PM (#14608 - in reply to #10788) (#14608) Top

mathcrazy

Posts: 35

Country : India

mathcrazy posted @ 2014-03-14 8:37 PM

Okay got it, thanks to both of you for those tips :)

Edited by mathcrazy 2014-03-14 8:41 PM

@ 2014-03-14 8:46 PM (#14609 - in reply to #14607) (#14609) Top

mathcrazy

Posts: 35

Country : India

mathcrazy posted @ 2014-03-14 8:46 PM

swaroop2011 - 2014-03-14 8:29 PM

also c14 r1 and r2 have only one choice .. basically find some cells which can go in unique way. :)

mathcrazy - 2014-03-14 7:33 PM

Any pointers on how to proceed with this Spiral Galaxies puzzle after this?

http://oi59.tinypic.com/27zlzll.jpg

How do cells C14R1 and C14R2 have only one choice?

@ 2014-03-14 9:36 PM (#14610 - in reply to #10788) (#14610) Top

swaroop2011

Posts: 668

Country : India

swaroop2011 posted @ 2014-03-14 9:36 PM

ok think in this way to which galaxy does c14r2 cell can join, you will find only one way.

@ 2014-03-15 2:22 AM (#14613 - in reply to #14579) (#14613) Top

brecher92

Posts: 30

Country : United States

brecher92 posted @ 2014-03-15 2:22 AM

Personally, in a forty-minute contest, I think that good notation is going to make a huge difference. Every time I try a puzzle like this, I go back and forth between drawing the border and connecting the cells directly, wasting a lot of time and creating a real mess of lines across the puzzle. This may be one puzzle type where I need to break into my child's supply of color pencils...

@ 2014-03-15 3:11 AM (#14614 - in reply to #10788) (#14614) Top

achan1058

Posts: 80

Country : Canada

achan1058 posted @ 2014-03-15 3:11 AM

When is this contest actually starting, since I am not seeing anything other than the instructions booklet.

@ 2014-03-15 3:21 AM (#14615 - in reply to #14614) (#14615) Top

debmohanty

Country : India

debmohanty posted @ 2014-03-15 3:21 AM

Administrator - 2014-03-14 5:08 PM

Beginners' contest is delayed - we will post a note when it starts.

achan1058 - 2014-03-15 3:11 AM

When is this contest actually starting, since I am not seeing anything other than the instructions booklet.

Quite unusually, we have run into some issues here. I can't put an exact time right now, but it will take around 12 hours, as I post this.

@ 2014-03-15 2:19 PM (#14617 - in reply to #14615) (#14617) Top

Administrator

Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2014-03-15 2:19 PM

March Beginners' Puzzle Contest has started

The dates are revised to 15^th - 20^th March (including both dates)

Submission Links : Spiral Galaxies • Tetrominoes

@ 2014-03-15 7:00 PM (#14619 - in reply to #14579) (#14619) Top

greenhorn

Posts: 164

Country : Slovakia

greenhorn posted @ 2014-03-15 7:00 PM

Great puzzles, Serkan! I really enjoyed solving them. But from my view, discovering the twisted rules is too difficult, I am not sure, whether beginners will get through it. I solved Galaxies about 20 minutes and 8-10 minutes was just about guessing the proper rules.

@ 2014-03-15 9:50 PM (#14621 - in reply to #10788) (#14621) Top

chaotic_iak

Posts: 241

Country : Indonesia

chaotic_iak posted @ 2014-03-15 9:50 PM

Great puzzles indeed. The puzzles feel reasonable (also I now know I'm not particularly good in Galaxies). I feel the exploratory rules for Galaxies is a bit stretching it though. Black and white circles are good ideas, but gray circles just sound like throwing the symmetry part of Galaxies away. I have no particular comments, although I feel Tetromino should also have a puzzle or two without givens.

Also, for some reason I blazed through the first six Tetromino puzzles in 11 minutes (plus two stupid mistakes on the first puzzle), and the last two in 17 minutes.

@ 2014-03-15 9:57 PM (#14622 - in reply to #14579) (#14622) Top

davep

Posts: 43

Country : United States

davep posted @ 2014-03-15 9:57 PM

Excellent job, Serkan. I particularly enjoyed SG # 6, which I thought was quite clever. Thanks for the contest!

@ 2014-03-15 11:17 PM (#14624 - in reply to #14579) (#14624) Top

Realshaggy

Posts: 69

Country : Germany

Realshaggy posted @ 2014-03-15 11:17 PM

Great puzzles!

However, I think I have an indication if my answer is right or wrong before I really submit it. Is this indicated? (The red border of the cell vanishes if my answer has the correct length of the entry string before I hit the button.)

@ 2014-03-15 11:38 PM (#14625 - in reply to #14624) (#14625) Top

debmohanty

Country : India

debmohanty posted @ 2014-03-15 11:38 PM

Realshaggy - 2014-03-15 11:17 PM

However, I think I have an indication if my answer is right or wrong before I really submit it. Is this indicated? (The red border of the cell vanishes if my answer has the correct length of the entry string before I hit the button.)

The red border vanishes when the sum of digits that you enter is equal to the size the grid (excluding black cells in Tetrominoes). It does not check for correctness of the answer.

For example, in Spiral Galaxy 1 - which is a 6X6 puzzle, if you enter 123 or 321 or 1122 or any set of digits summing to 6 the red border will vanish. We use this to check and alert if the answer is not formatted properly. Additionally, there is no penalty on answers which are not formatted correctly.

Hope that clarifies.

@ 2014-03-16 12:57 AM (#14626 - in reply to #10788) (#14626) Top

Realshaggy

Posts: 69

Country : Germany

Realshaggy posted @ 2014-03-16 12:57 AM

Oh sorry. I didnt recognize you can use the sum of the digits as a check.

@ 2014-03-16 1:46 AM (#14627 - in reply to #14579) (#14627) Top

WA1729

Posts: 65

Country : United States

WA1729 posted @ 2014-03-16 1:46 AM

I recently reached the Seasoner level, but the test still says, "You have chosen to play as Beginner." Is there a way to change my level to Seasoner?

@ 2014-03-16 3:54 AM (#14629 - in reply to #14579) (#14629) Top

auroux

Posts: 145

Country : France

auroux posted @ 2014-03-16 3:54 AM

I agree with most other posters -- really great puzzles, but on Galaxies figuring out the white/grey/black rule and checking on the given example took forever. (I should probably just have tried to solve #7 with the rule I guessed instead of wasting time trying it out on the example, but I really didn't have faith that I had guessed right).

@ 2014-03-16 6:08 AM (#14631 - in reply to #10788) (#14631) Top

achan1058

Posts: 80

Country : Canada

achan1058 posted @ 2014-03-16 6:08 AM

I guessed wrong on #7 in such a way that produced the right answer, and only realized that when I was trying to do #8......

@ 2014-03-16 7:03 AM (#14632 - in reply to #10788) (#14632) Top

swaroop2011

Posts: 668

Country : India

swaroop2011 posted @ 2014-03-16 7:03 AM

Thanks serkan, really beautiful puzzles.
Especially SG 5 and 6, Exploratory of Tetrominoes.
But unfortunately a bad test for me in Spiral Galaxies, I did continuously mistakes in all of them and at the end was confused to figure out rules for exploratory part and time got over. :(
After struggling little and fixing the rules it just took a minute each to solve each puzzle. :)

@ 2014-03-18 12:11 AM (#14635 - in reply to #10788) (#14635) Top

macherlakumar

Posts: 123

Country : India

macherlakumar posted @ 2014-03-18 12:11 AM

Thanks Serkan for excellent puzzles.
I enjoyed both tests, I felt that Tetrominoes is easier than Spiral Galaxies.
I figured the rules for Spiral Galaxies exploratory part in just 1 min but due to stress I convinced myself that I got the rules wrong and slept :D

Regards,
Ravi

@ 2014-03-20 3:30 AM (#14650 - in reply to #10788) (#14650) Top

bob

Posts: 59

Country : United States

bob posted @ 2014-03-20 3:30 AM

How do I give up? The last two spiral galaxy puzzles are impossible to me; I am baffled by the example and I would just like to find out the rules. But the clock never runs out. Is there any way to forfeit? Seems rather difficult for a "beginner" contest.


	@ 2014-03-10 10:41 PM (#14586 - in reply to #14584) (#14586) Top
mathcrazy Posts: 35 Country : India	mathcrazy posted @ 2014-03-10 10:41 PM debmohanty - 2014-03-10 9:21 PM mathcrazy - 2014-03-10 8:49 PM In Spiral Galaxies, should each region definitely contain a circle? Or can there be regions whose point of symmetry is not shown? In standard Spiral Galaxies all circles / central points will be given. That means, each region must contain exactly one of the given circles. As noted in the IB, and as it had happened in the previous beginners' tests, some rules are deviated in the exploratory category. For those puzzles, you need to look at the given example to find out the deviation in rules, if any. Thanks, that cleared my doubt. Where can I find solving techniques for Spiral Galaxies? There seems to be more than one way of proceeding with each puzzle, and I'm able to realize very late that I proceeded wrongly.
	@ 2014-03-11 5:01 AM (#14588 - in reply to #14586) (#14588) Top
chaotic_iak Posts: 241 Country : Indonesia	chaotic_iak posted @ 2014-03-11 5:01 AM Basic deductions: - Two circles that are in adjacent cells have walls between them. Note that a circle is included even if it's only partially inside a cell (at the edge or corner). - When a circle has a wall adjacent to it, the symmetrically opposite border must also be wall. Intermediate deductions: - Keep track of what cells a circle contains. The above two rules apply even for non-circle cells, as long as they belong to different regions. - Sometimes, a cell is just so far from other circles; try to figure out which circle holds this cell. - Sometimes intuition helps scoring a quick time.
	@ 2014-03-14 5:08 PM (#14604 - in reply to #14588) (#14604) Top
Administrator Country : India	Administrator posted @ 2014-03-14 5:08 PM Beginners' contest is delayed - we will post a note when it starts.
	@ 2014-03-14 7:33 PM (#14605 - in reply to #10788) (#14605) Top
mathcrazy Posts: 35 Country : India	mathcrazy posted @ 2014-03-14 7:33 PM Any pointers on how to proceed with this Spiral Galaxies puzzle after this? http://oi59.tinypic.com/27zlzll.jpg
	@ 2014-03-14 7:55 PM (#14606 - in reply to #14605) (#14606) Top
greenhorn Posts: 164 Country : Slovakia	greenhorn posted @ 2014-03-14 7:55 PM mathcrazy - 2014-03-14 7:33 PM Any pointers on how to proceed with this Spiral Galaxies puzzle after this? http://oi59.tinypic.com/27zlzll.jpg Cells C12-R8,9,10 are in the same region, for example.
	@ 2014-03-14 8:29 PM (#14607 - in reply to #14605) (#14607) Top
swaroop2011 Posts: 668 Country : India	swaroop2011 posted @ 2014-03-14 8:29 PM also c14 r1 and r2 have only one choice .. basically find some cells which can go in unique way. :) mathcrazy - 2014-03-14 7:33 PM Any pointers on how to proceed with this Spiral Galaxies puzzle after this? http://oi59.tinypic.com/27zlzll.jpg
	@ 2014-03-14 8:37 PM (#14608 - in reply to #10788) (#14608) Top
mathcrazy Posts: 35 Country : India	mathcrazy posted @ 2014-03-14 8:37 PM Okay got it, thanks to both of you for those tips :) Edited by mathcrazy 2014-03-14 8:41 PM
	@ 2014-03-14 8:46 PM (#14609 - in reply to #14607) (#14609) Top
mathcrazy Posts: 35 Country : India	mathcrazy posted @ 2014-03-14 8:46 PM swaroop2011 - 2014-03-14 8:29 PM also c14 r1 and r2 have only one choice .. basically find some cells which can go in unique way. :) mathcrazy - 2014-03-14 7:33 PM Any pointers on how to proceed with this Spiral Galaxies puzzle after this? http://oi59.tinypic.com/27zlzll.jpg How do cells C14R1 and C14R2 have only one choice?
	@ 2014-03-14 9:36 PM (#14610 - in reply to #10788) (#14610) Top
swaroop2011 Posts: 668 Country : India	swaroop2011 posted @ 2014-03-14 9:36 PM ok think in this way to which galaxy does c14r2 cell can join, you will find only one way.
	@ 2014-03-15 2:22 AM (#14613 - in reply to #14579) (#14613) Top
brecher92 Posts: 30 Country : United States	brecher92 posted @ 2014-03-15 2:22 AM Personally, in a forty-minute contest, I think that good notation is going to make a huge difference. Every time I try a puzzle like this, I go back and forth between drawing the border and connecting the cells directly, wasting a lot of time and creating a real mess of lines across the puzzle. This may be one puzzle type where I need to break into my child's supply of color pencils...
	@ 2014-03-15 3:11 AM (#14614 - in reply to #10788) (#14614) Top
achan1058 Posts: 80 Country : Canada	achan1058 posted @ 2014-03-15 3:11 AM When is this contest actually starting, since I am not seeing anything other than the instructions booklet.
	@ 2014-03-15 3:21 AM (#14615 - in reply to #14614) (#14615) Top
debmohanty Country : India	debmohanty posted @ 2014-03-15 3:21 AM Administrator - 2014-03-14 5:08 PM Beginners' contest is delayed - we will post a note when it starts. achan1058 - 2014-03-15 3:11 AM When is this contest actually starting, since I am not seeing anything other than the instructions booklet. Quite unusually, we have run into some issues here. I can't put an exact time right now, but it will take around 12 hours, as I post this.
	@ 2014-03-15 2:19 PM (#14617 - in reply to #14615) (#14617) Top
Administrator Country : India	Administrator posted @ 2014-03-15 2:19 PM March Beginners' Puzzle Contest has started The dates are revised to 15^th - 20^th March (including both dates) Submission Links : Spiral Galaxies • Tetrominoes
	@ 2014-03-15 7:00 PM (#14619 - in reply to #14579) (#14619) Top
greenhorn Posts: 164 Country : Slovakia	greenhorn posted @ 2014-03-15 7:00 PM Great puzzles, Serkan! I really enjoyed solving them. But from my view, discovering the twisted rules is too difficult, I am not sure, whether beginners will get through it. I solved Galaxies about 20 minutes and 8-10 minutes was just about guessing the proper rules.
	@ 2014-03-15 9:50 PM (#14621 - in reply to #10788) (#14621) Top
chaotic_iak Posts: 241 Country : Indonesia	chaotic_iak posted @ 2014-03-15 9:50 PM Great puzzles indeed. The puzzles feel reasonable (also I now know I'm not particularly good in Galaxies). I feel the exploratory rules for Galaxies is a bit stretching it though. Black and white circles are good ideas, but gray circles just sound like throwing the symmetry part of Galaxies away. I have no particular comments, although I feel Tetromino should also have a puzzle or two without givens. Also, for some reason I blazed through the first six Tetromino puzzles in 11 minutes (plus two stupid mistakes on the first puzzle), and the last two in 17 minutes.
	@ 2014-03-15 9:57 PM (#14622 - in reply to #14579) (#14622) Top
davep Posts: 43 Country : United States	davep posted @ 2014-03-15 9:57 PM Excellent job, Serkan. I particularly enjoyed SG # 6, which I thought was quite clever. Thanks for the contest!
	@ 2014-03-15 11:17 PM (#14624 - in reply to #14579) (#14624) Top
Realshaggy Posts: 69 Country : Germany	Realshaggy posted @ 2014-03-15 11:17 PM Great puzzles! However, I think I have an indication if my answer is right or wrong before I really submit it. Is this indicated? (The red border of the cell vanishes if my answer has the correct length of the entry string before I hit the button.)
	@ 2014-03-15 11:38 PM (#14625 - in reply to #14624) (#14625) Top
debmohanty Country : India	debmohanty posted @ 2014-03-15 11:38 PM Realshaggy - 2014-03-15 11:17 PM However, I think I have an indication if my answer is right or wrong before I really submit it. Is this indicated? (The red border of the cell vanishes if my answer has the correct length of the entry string before I hit the button.) The red border vanishes when the sum of digits that you enter is equal to the size the grid (excluding black cells in Tetrominoes). It does not check for correctness of the answer. For example, in Spiral Galaxy 1 - which is a 6X6 puzzle, if you enter 123 or 321 or 1122 or any set of digits summing to 6 the red border will vanish. We use this to check and alert if the answer is not formatted properly. Additionally, there is no penalty on answers which are not formatted correctly. Hope that clarifies.
	@ 2014-03-16 12:57 AM (#14626 - in reply to #10788) (#14626) Top
Realshaggy Posts: 69 Country : Germany	Realshaggy posted @ 2014-03-16 12:57 AM Oh sorry. I didnt recognize you can use the sum of the digits as a check.
	@ 2014-03-16 1:46 AM (#14627 - in reply to #14579) (#14627) Top
WA1729 Posts: 65 Country : United States	WA1729 posted @ 2014-03-16 1:46 AM I recently reached the Seasoner level, but the test still says, "You have chosen to play as Beginner." Is there a way to change my level to Seasoner?
	@ 2014-03-16 3:54 AM (#14629 - in reply to #14579) (#14629) Top
auroux Posts: 145 Country : France	auroux posted @ 2014-03-16 3:54 AM I agree with most other posters -- really great puzzles, but on Galaxies figuring out the white/grey/black rule and checking on the given example took forever. (I should probably just have tried to solve #7 with the rule I guessed instead of wasting time trying it out on the example, but I really didn't have faith that I had guessed right).
	@ 2014-03-16 6:08 AM (#14631 - in reply to #10788) (#14631) Top
achan1058 Posts: 80 Country : Canada	achan1058 posted @ 2014-03-16 6:08 AM I guessed wrong on #7 in such a way that produced the right answer, and only realized that when I was trying to do #8......
	@ 2014-03-16 7:03 AM (#14632 - in reply to #10788) (#14632) Top
swaroop2011 Posts: 668 Country : India	swaroop2011 posted @ 2014-03-16 7:03 AM Thanks serkan, really beautiful puzzles. Especially SG 5 and 6, Exploratory of Tetrominoes. But unfortunately a bad test for me in Spiral Galaxies, I did continuously mistakes in all of them and at the end was confused to figure out rules for exploratory part and time got over. :( After struggling little and fixing the rules it just took a minute each to solve each puzzle. :)
	@ 2014-03-18 12:11 AM (#14635 - in reply to #10788) (#14635) Top
macherlakumar Posts: 123 Country : India	macherlakumar posted @ 2014-03-18 12:11 AM Thanks Serkan for excellent puzzles. I enjoyed both tests, I felt that Tetrominoes is easier than Spiral Galaxies. I figured the rules for Spiral Galaxies exploratory part in just 1 min but due to stress I convinced myself that I got the rules wrong and slept :D Regards, Ravi
	@ 2014-03-20 3:30 AM (#14650 - in reply to #10788) (#14650) Top
bob Posts: 59 Country : United States	bob posted @ 2014-03-20 3:30 AM How do I give up? The last two spiral galaxy puzzles are impossible to me; I am baffled by the example and I would just like to find out the rules. But the clock never runs out. Is there any way to forfeit? Seems rather difficult for a "beginner" contest.