Students compete in first Rose-Hulman/Harvey Mudd Puzzle Hunt

On Saturday, October 27, the first ever Rose-Hulman/Harvey Mudd Puzzle Hunt occurred on each respective schools’ campus. Rose-Hulman mechanical engineering professor David Fisher and Harvey Mudd engineering professor Bob Scaffer organized the event to hold a friendly competition between U.S. News and World Report’s top two engineering undergraduate programs among schools whose highest degree is a bachelor’s or master’s. Fisher revealed, “Bob Schaffer and I came up with the idea. We were roommates in grad school. I got my Ph.D. and went to Rose, he went to Harvey Mudd. We were playing on the same puzzle hunt team for a Shinteki event and we got to talking about the plan over the summer.”

The event involved over 40 teams of students and alumni from Rose-Hulman and Harvey Mudd. Fisher explained, “Teams solved 16 puzzles during the hunt. They would pick up a puzzle, solve it, then figure out where to go next. The clues were placed all over campus and teams traveled about four miles during the event. Teams had seven hours to complete the 16 puzzles. Then, if they finished the first 16 puzzles, they were given a more challenging 17th puzzle.” Junior mechanical engineering major Megan O’Brien said, “I was so impressed with the response of the Rose community. Teams were very enthusiastic and it was amazing to see people’s different thinking styles and strengths come into play. Sometimes we’d get stuck on a clue and would have to wait for inspiration to strike and then approach it from another angle entirely.”

Photo: Andrew Carlson Rose students work on the first puzzle during last weekend’s puzzle hunt.

The puzzle provided a variety of both difficult and humorous challenges. Junior electrical engineering major Molly Nelis explained, “For the first clue everyone from Rose-Hulman had to call the teams from Harvey Mudd to get pieces of a word. It was funny because my team was the last to leave and our word was ‘slow.’” Nelis continued, “Some of the clues forced you to think in ways you normally wouldn’t. The first thing my team would do when we opened a new clue was try to figure out what it was asking us to do and how it was hiding the information. It would be fantastic fun to do another puzzle hunt.” One of the more popular puzzles involved a message in a bottle. Senior mechanical engineering major Matt DeVries stated, “My favorite puzzle had to be the one where we were given a laser etched glass bottle and needed to line up the label in such a way as to make first semaphore and then binary appear. I wish we would have another Puzzle Hunt before the end of the year!”

The participants in the event seemed to have an overall positive experience. Senior mechanical engineering major Dave Schluneker stated, “The puzzle hunt was really a lot of fun. I hope they have more in the future.” Nelis added, “I have never had an afternoon pass so quickly.” Senior mechanical engineering major Danny Sing simply described the event as, “Oodles and oodles of confusing fun.”