Description: Ms. Tran’s cow has gone missing and she would like to get your help in finding it. We have to decode a series of Caesar-encrypted clues to uncover what happened, who did it, and where the cow is now. We will receive 5 encrypted messages. Each message is encrypted with a different Caesar shift, and the messages are in sequential story order—they must be solved in order. We must use logic, context clues, and your Caesar decryption skills to crack each one. The final message will reveal the cow location. We will receive the next clue only after we crack the previous one.

Procedure: 

Clue 1: Vb. Cajw oxdwm jw xynw pjcn. Bqn rb yjwrltrwp knljdbn qna lxf qjb pxwn vrbbrwp!

Answer: Ms. Tran found an open gate. She is panicking because her cow has gone missing!

Clue 2: Tcwn uckf jg ucy vjg eqy jcpikpi qwv ykvj LJ mkfu kp vjg Ewg Swcf gcvkpi okpv ecpfa.

Answer: Raul said he saw the cow hanging out with JH kids in the Cue Quad eating mint candy..

Clue 3: Tz. Ayhu yljhssz zllpun Tz. Rpun huk Tz. Zhujolg lhapun aol zhtl tpua jhukf.

Answer: Ms. Tran recalls seeing Ms. King and Ms. Sanchez eating the same mint candy.

Clue 4: Awumwvm nwcvl i kivlg ezixxmz eqbp “Kitt um” ezqbbmv vmfb bw i vcujmz: 650806….

Answer: Someone found a candy wrapper with “Call me” written next to a number: 650806….

Clue 5: Zme cuf swbjs cgwfpmy aa sdeo gx goa fv. So otn zbuqe iz. Pb batkkm aw Rs. Yjpjpke’a uohpkk tw mnv pox nabxtpbk svait.

Answer: The cow loves candies as much as you do. No one stole it. It walked to Ms. Sanchez’s office to get his favorite snack.

For Clue 1 - 4, we used code that we had coded the class before: a for loop for all the possible keys. Using range 1 to 27, the code checked all 26 shift possibilities for the key (letters of the alphabet). Using code that we had coded the class before,  we used a for loop for all the possible keys.

For clue 5, which is a multi-digit shift key, there were a few more steps to the process. First, we used the code to decrypt a multi-digit shift key with the key. However, we only had the first 6 digits of the key (650806...), a phone number. So, I guessed and started repeating the digits until we had a 10 digit shift key (6508066508). However, while thsi did give us a idea of what the clue said, it wasn't completely correct. To be specific, we got "The coz soves caqapes as mxzo as you av. No onh ztole it. Pt walkeg ao Ms. Sdkjhez’s oicpce to ghq his favropte snacn." This is also shown of the bottom left image. Next, we used another piece of code for all the digits from 0 to 10000, which would be all the four digit numbers. Then we turned i, which was all four digit numbers, into a string, that was concatenated with the original part of the phone number. With this, we used command and F to search for the word "candies" among all entries, and there was only one (We got this from the partial code we had previously)

Reflection:

S: One of my strengths was making the code as efficient as possible, so I could figure out the decrypted code as quickly as possible.

O: In my code, I could've improved it by adding something that could filter through all the possible single shift keys, and then only give me the correct english answer.

U: I learned a lot about lists, caesar cipher encryption, and decryption in this project. Using for loops in this manner was very interesting as well.

L: A limitation was that with larger shift keys, you must scroll much more to find the solution. For the four digit code, my partner's code was efficient enough, but still gave 10,000 solutions that had to be sifted through. If the key was any larger, the time taken to decode would have been exponentially longer.

WISCR: We used I, being insightful and critical thinkers to code a new solution for clue five using our understanding and previous clues. We also used C, as we clearly communicated the clues and their solution with each other.