I hinted in a previous post that I would be participating in the Google US Puzzle Championship again this year. Well, that was last Saturday and I didn’t do as well as I hoped. Ran into a printer malfunction, but even disregarding that, I wouldn’t have hit my goal of 8 puzzles solved. I’m nowhere near the awesomeness of Champion Thomas Snyder who describes finishing 7 problems within the first 15 minutes of the exam. Someday, Thomas! I’m gonna be right up there with you!
So, what is the US Puzzle Championship? I know it’s a pretty niche-y thing since none of my friends ever heard about it until I mentioned it, and we’re in the same geek class. So, it’s time to make a lens! I decided to gear my lens towards the not-even-close-to-winning-it puzzlers that take the exam every year. We can do the puzzles if given an infinite amount of time but just need some practice to improve our 2.5 hr test scores. I also want to make the lens useful for people who are really just getting introduced to these logic puzzles. Therefore, my lens has a few major sections: tips on improving your test score (I’ve reached Top 100 before), links to past exams for practice purposes, and step-by-step solving instructions. This is the most ambitious part of my lens. I’ve begun the step-by-step instructions for the 2008 Google US Puzzle Championship, but it’ll take some time to finish. I decided to publish it, anyway, in its current form just in case people are interested.
I don’t expect a ton of traffic from these sites, but just in making them, I discovered that Amazon has a lot of these puzzle books. I’m tempted to buy a couple to start practicing for next year. This is a topic that I have lots of love for, and I can’t wait to have the only place on the web that can hold people’s hands while showing them how to solve these fun logic puzzles. Really, I just haven’t seen many of these sites out there. I hope this is useful for people.
Thomas, if you find this post from a trackback, leave me a message on my US Puzzle Championship page! You’re a celebrity to me! 