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New Round Of Brainfood Puzzles
Saturday, January 5, 2008
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This post is just to let everyone know that there's a new round of Brainfood Puzzles that'll start tomorrow. From September to January, the Brainfood high scorers were yoi55 and VICKY, with 50 points each...followed closely by lewanj with 48 and AlphaSigChainsaw with 40. Nicely done everyone!
During the winter and spring months you will see some recurring themes in the Brainfood Puzzles. These recurring puzzle types include:
Hinky Pinky - In which you are given a clue, and you must figure out two rhyming words that fit the clue. For example, if the clue was: "A Much Nicer Restaurant", the answer might be: "Finer Diner"
Word Ladders - A game invented by Lewis Carroll, in which you must get from one word to another by changing one letter at a time. Example: to get from HATE to LOVE, you might use the following Word Ladder: HATE/RATE/RAVE/CAVE/COVE/LOVE.
Word Equations - A word equation is an addition of two words to create a third word. Here's an example: SLENDER + RULER = PONDERING. The reason this equation makes sense is, SLENDER = THIN, and RULER = KING. THIN + KING = THINKING = PONDERING.
I hope you enjoy this new round of word puzzles!Labels: brainfood
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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This Week's Brainfood Puzzle
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
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Thought I'd drop just a quick note here to say...check out this week's BrainFood Puzzle.
Last week's puzzle had a lot of solvers, but this week...not so many! Can you figure it out before the solution is posted on Sunday?Labels: brainfood, puzzle, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Site Updates, New Problems!
Saturday, September 1, 2007
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I'm very happy to announce that Graeme McRae is back for another year of High School Math Problems! Graeme comes up with some very creative and challenging problems, so be sure to check that out. He plans to post a new problem each month. If you solve his problems, you can login and submit a solution for him to grade.
Along the same lines, you will find a brand new brainteaser as well. The BrainFood page will be updated every Sunday throughout the fall and winter (with short breaks for Thanksgiving and Christmas).
So there you have it - a reason to come back every month, and a reason to come back every week!
Also, some changes have been made to the site, which you can read about here: The Problem Site free membership.
Please note that, as always, new features can result in bugs, so if you encounter any problems, I'd like to hear about them!Labels: brainfood, math, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Changes And Updates
Friday, August 31, 2007
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Today is the last day of August, 2007, and tomorrow morning some changes will be implemented on The Problem Site. There may be a period of an hour or two tomorrow morning (probably around 8:00 AM, EST) when the site's behavior may be erratic, and certain features may not function properly. Once these updates are completed, the following features will be available:
1. The login system for the Problems section of the site will be modified. Members will login using their screen name and password, rather than their email address and password. The reason for this change is simple: members are no longer required to provide an email address in order to create a membership account - this will make it easier for children/students to access various parts of the site.
2. Speaking of the "Problems" section of the site, Graeme will have a new High School Math Problem posted tomorrow, and I will have a new BrainFood Puzzle posted.
3. Two games on the site which have high score lists (Adders! and Trio Match) will be modified so that the high score lists will show scores by members only.
4. Also, when you are logged into the site, the site will track how many of the 2800 Entrapment Puzzles you have completed, and will always show you puzzles you have not yet solved, in roughly ascending level of difficulty.
Once these changes are in effect, if you have ANY problems with the site, please fire off an email to me (dtwitchell@virtu-software.com) or post a comment here!
Thanks,
Douglas Twitchell
TPS AdministratorLabels: brainfood, math, membership, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Bookmarking, Part Two
Monday, August 27, 2007
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In my previous post I mentioned that I had to remove the bookmarking link from The Problem Site, because it was causing everything to slow down.
I have done a work-around on that - now the bookmarking icon takes you to the "Page Linking" section of the site, where you can then jump to a bookmarking service.
It's an extra step, I know, but since some of the site's older games require fast loading pages, that takes precedence over bookmarking convenience.
So, give it a try - if you find a game you like, click the bookmarking icon, and then you can either add a link to your own site, or select a bookmarking service!
On a different subject, I'm compiling my list of new puzzles for Brainfood, and that should be back up and running in a couple weeks. Once again, if you have puzzles you'd like to see show up on the site, go ahead and email me!Labels: brainfood, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Getting Ready For School...
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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As many of you know, I've been away from the computer for the last six weeks, as I've been traveling around the state speaking at different camps (Camp Fairhaven, Blueberry Mountain, Camp Berea, and Camp Good News).
Now I'm back...sort of.
I'm taking a little bit of time off, and included in that time off I have gallbladder surgery scheduled for next Tuesday (the 21st).
As I look at all the things I want to do, and all the things I need to do, I'm afraid that some features I wanted to implement on the puzzler sites this fall may need to wait a while.
But the real critical thing is...
I need to get BrainFood Problems written for the coming year, because there's a pile of people chomping at the bit to get new riddles.
People seem to be enjoying the "Word Association" riddles, so I think I'll do those for another semester.
If you would like to help, scan through the previous Brainfood puzzles to get an idea of how the "Word Association" puzzles work, and then if you come up with any of your own, send me an email: dtwitchell@virtu-software.com
Thanks!Labels: brainfood, brainteasers
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Getting Ready For Summer
Monday, May 28, 2007
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Those who have been around the Puzzler Sites for awhile know that when summer hits, I "disappear" for a few weeks. This summer I'm going to be "camp pastor" at several different camps over the course of a month and a half.
What does that mean for the sites? It means that, although I will be checking in on the sites regularly, you shouldn't expect to see any new puzzles appear on the site for the next few months. Here is a little bit of information about the sites to get you through the summer...
BrainFood
The BrainFood Page is about to shut down for the summer; this week's puzzle is the very last one before summer vacation. The next puzzle will appear in September. If you would like to be reminded when the BrainFood page has new puzzles again, you can either use the "subscribe" link to put the BrainFood puzzles into your favorite feed reader, or you can email me(dtwitchell@virtu-software.com). Be sure to specify that you're emailing me because you want to be reminded when BrainFood is back online.
 | Click the email icon to send me an email asking to be put on the BrainFood reminder list. |
On that subject, I haven't decided what sorts of puzzles I'm going to do next fall, so if you have any ideas, drop me an email!
Entrapment Puzzle
If you missed the previous post in this blog, there is a new game on The Problem Site. The game is called ENTRAPMENT, and the goal of the game is to "trap" each of the computer's red dots between your gray dots. Sounds simple, right? Especially when I tell you that you can move your dots, but the computer doesn't move its dots, right?
Turns out it's a little more complex than that, and I won't say any more, except to tell you to go check it out, and also to show you a screenshot of a completed puzzle:
Tile Puzzler
I'm very excited to see the sheer number of puzzles which have been created/solved at Tile Puzzler, since the site went online a few months ago. I think we now have enough puzzles that I can select the cream of the crop and start a "Daily Puzzle" competition complete with high score list (but, unlike Quote Puzzler, without prizes). If you would like to be notified when the daily Tile Puzzler competition starts up, send me an email.
| Click the email icon to send me an email asking to be put on the Tile Puzzler notification list. |
Also, feel free to continue adding puzzles througout the summer. Who knows - some of your puzzles may make it into the competition!
Note: During the summer months you can expect that creation of Tri Puzzles, FreeStyle Puzzles, and Overlap Puzzles will be restricted to members only. This is to keep the site from being flooded with pathetically easy or painfully impossible puzzles. If you want to create these style puzzles, just create a member account and login!
The Puzzler Store
This site will be getting a major overhaul towards the end of the summer; I am putting together a team of product reviewers who are going to be writing reviews of puzzle/educational products. Some of these reviewers are already receiving products directly from publishers to review for this site. Coming in the fall you can expect to see reviews of several math and science tutorial DVDs, and probably a variety of other products.
The Problem Site
As you may have noticed, all the puzzler sites (Tile Puzzler, Quote Puzzler and The Puzzler Store) have very similar page layouts - same color scheme, same background image, same border styles, etc. The Problem Site is, strictly speaking, the very first of the puzzler sites, yet it has a very different layout.
I've been toying with the idea of rebuilding the site layout so it matches the other sites. Any opinions?Labels: brainfood, entrapment, puzzler-store, theproblemsite, tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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BrainFood: Creating a puzzle
Monday, May 14, 2007
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The Brainfood Puzzles section of The Problem Site is a popular spot on the site; although only two or three people post solutions each week, there is a much larger group of visitors who return every week to read the new puzzle (and presumably check the previous week's solution!)
If you haven't checked out the Brainfood Page, this year the puzzles have been word associations. I give three or four words, and you must figure out what other word can be used in conjunction with these words. Don't understand? Well, here's an example:
The three words: HORSE, FOOTBALL, MERCY
The solution is: QUARTER
Why? Because you can have a QUARTER HORSE, football games have QUARTERS, and to GIVE QUARTER is to grant mercy.
(This particular puzzle can be found here: Horse, Football, Mercy Puzzle)
Today, Ruth (one of the members who posts solutions regularly) asked: How do you come up with these?
The answer to that question is: I work backwards. I start with a solution, and then try to come up with a few phrases that make use of the word.
For example, the day I came up with the QUARTER puzzle, I was sitting in my office, and there was a quarter (25 cents) on my desk. So I thought, "In what other contexts (besides money) do we use the word 'quarter'?"
The answers were pretty obvious - you often hear of Quarter Horses, and of course, many sporting events have quarters. "Giving Quarter" or "Granting Quarter" was a phrase I had heard (or read) many times. It turned out, though, that many solvers had never heard the phrase, so they had a much harder time with the puzzle.
This is one of the things that makes the Brainfood puzzles so interesting; you don't need a specialized knowledge in any area to solve them, but having a broad knowledge base in many subjects will be very helpful.
Ruth's other question was this: Do you think that language is so inventive that you could do this with any three words and enough time?
And my answer to that question is: if we tried it, and were stubborn and patient enough to work away at it, I think we would be very surprised at the number of solutions we could come up with! I'm often surprised by the alternate solutions which visitors come up with. When people come up with alternate solutions that work as well as my own solution, I generally post the alternate solutions in the "Solutions" section.
Here's an example that had alternate solutions by Ruth and yoi55: Hole, Push, Hook Puzzle.Labels: brainfood, brainteasers, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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