The “run-around” Opening Puzzle is designed to get students’ excited about the day of puzzles in front of them!
Each team receives a packet with five Main Puzzles pulled from various mathematical fields and applications. These puzzles may vary in scope or difficulty and teams which report correct answers earn Victory Points, unlock the corresponding Bonus Puzzle, and reveal a piece of the Metapuzzle.
These optimization puzzles extend the theme or mathematical material involved in the corresponding Main Puzzle.
This puzzle is included in the packet of Main Puzzles, but teams will collect more information on how to solve it by solving Main Puzzles first. The Metapuzzle is worth the greatest number of Victory Points of all other puzzles, and is the ultimate goal for players.
Observant players may find evidence of an additional puzzle worth a few extra Victory Points, if they know where to look... maybe!