In the final puzzle, is the mirror symmetry necessarily about a vertical axis?

Thank you,

David McNeill.

Yes, the mirror symmetry in FLIP Every Second Breakpoint must be across the vertical axis. As such, the letters above the grids are mirrored such that both will give the same letter-number pairs when solved properly.

In Flip Sequence: "Do not count numbers that read the same forward and backward as flipped"
What does this mean?

In Flip Strip: Can we completely remove a strip? (Not part of any given sum)

In FLIP Sequence, if a number is a palindrome, such as 22, 141, 3773, etc, it should not be listed when you list the flipped numbers in your solution, since even if you flip it it stays the same.

In FLIP Strips, you may completely remove a FLIPped strip if you need it necessary, but you shouldn't have to.

In the first example, "Flip n Fill Sequence", clue E (72) is flipped (27).

If E is referenced in another clue, say the clue was: E + 2
will the answer be 74 or could it be 29?

E has to be on-third of A. So E is fixed at 27.
If there were another clue X = E + 2, X has to be 29. But it could be flipped to be 92 (to make the consecutive string)

In summary, the value of each letter is fixed. Some of them are to be FLIPped to make the consecutive string.
David - correct me if I'm wrong. Also, the example does not use any FLIPed letter as a reference. May be you should consider posting a smaller example where a FLIPped letter is used as a reference for another letter clue.

That is not clear to me. I was under the impression that all strips have to be used.
When you say "you shouldn't have to" do you mean "Puzzles are designed in such a way that all strips are to be used"?
Also, can I flip a strip twice?

FLIP 'n' Fill Sequence - Is it allowed to use non-flipped numbers with zero at first place ( 09 ) or we have to use ( 9 )?
(There is 09 in the example, but this number is reversed 90).

In Shape Sudoku, one of the givens in the upper diagram is incorrect. I guess from the symmetry that the 5 in the bottom row should have been given instead of the 3 in the right-hand column.

David McNeill.

@ronald and Deb:
In the FLIP and Fill Sequence, the value of each letter is fixed. That value may need to be entered backwards to create the sequence, but the original value is still fixed. So if E is 27, E + 2 is 29, not 74.

@Deb (and Rohan):
Yes, the puzzle is designed so that all strips must be used in some way. A strip should not be flipped twice.

@Gotroch:
You may use additional zeroes to pad an answer (e.g. 9 becomes 09 or 009)

@David:
I'll fix that immediately - thank you for catching it. The 3 in the right-most column should have been a 1.

Hi

I was a bit confused for a while at K in flip the sequence. I read it as (Square root of J) + 3, except it actually is square root of (J+3). Mathematically my way is correct. Is this intentional to be able to be read 2 ways? If not, i just hope the clues will be unambiguous in the test. Would be kinda annoying to get stuck on something like that.

@Para It shouldn't be ambiguous. I'll double check to see if the test has any ambiguous clues like that and fix them immediately, and will update the IB very soon as well. Sorry!

Edit: There was one similar problem in the PB that I found and fixed, and I've sent the revised IB and PB to Deb. Thanks again for the questions and finding these problems!

Edited by davmillar 2010-11-17 5:07 AM

Can '0' be used as a perfect square?

@Rohan: Yes, it can.

Click here for Puzzle Booklet

I just want to say thanks again to Deb for facilitating the test and Grant for test solving, and best of luck to everyone who will be taking the test. I hope you all enjoy the puzzles a bunch!

Edited by davmillar 2010-11-20 12:53 AM

Enjoyed the test. Don't know why, but I had trouble entering the solution code for puzzle 7. Please check my answer manually.

David McNeill.

David, It is already marked as correct for you.
Was not expecting that one will enter 13 commas along with 20 digits :-)

Nice test, thanks! That went really quickly. I wasn't expecting so much math, but that's just me not paying attention to the IB.

I screwed up my answer to #2, entering the wrong end of the consecutive chain. Is that a minor enough screw-up that it could be overlooked?

That went rather fast, but every moment was enjoyable. I particularly liked the mirror puzzles with 0/2/5. Thanks for these puzzles.

Unlike Renban, you can see everyone's total score after you complete the test.
Note that you can refresh the score page only once in 30 minutes.

I actually found I could check the score before my clock ran out. This had two bad problems: first I had to wait 30 minutes to actually see my score due to the refresh penalty, but more importantly it seems this is not info someone should have anytime the test is running. So maybe a lock until clock has run out is best?

Edited by motris 2010-11-20 11:04 AM

Disabled the score page completely until this problem is fixed.

Puzzles were good and enjoyable. I liked ESB, Slitherlink and Mirror 0-2-5 the best.

I feel 50 minutes is too short for a test. By the time you get into the groove of solving, before you know its over. And if someone has a problem like a jammed printer (like me), then there's absolutely no time to coverup.
Also, if players finish the test within 50 minutes (or maybe 40 after seeing Thomas's 'rather fast'), then there should have been more puzzles. The concept of FLIP is fantastic and I dont see why there couldn't have been more puzzles.

Did anyone have trouble with the '1's and '7's? or '0's and '9's? or '5's and '6's? I had to strain a bit to solve (especially the sudoku) some of them. The font was a little disturbing, or maybe it was just my sleepy eye :|

@David
The concept of FLIP was brilliant and I would rate it as one of the best concepts of LMI tests after Mastermind Twins.

Fixed. Thanks for reporting.
The score page was always designed to display score only after the clock has run out.
But with some changes yesterday (especially the 30 minutes penalty which we added to reduce load on server / database), a 'bug' crept in.

We store all the times (time for submission, time of checking score etc) in the database. A quick check revealed that no one else had visited the score page before completing.
And you visited 'long time' after you submitted your last answer :-)