full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Rosenthal: The joyful, perplexing world of puzzle hunts

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(creehs)

Yeah.

(Applause)

And in cmlaniig it, we win the MIT Mystery Hunt by a tiny margin of five mteunis. What I didn't mention before is that the prize for winning is that you get to construct the whole hunt for the following year.

(Laughter)

The punishment for winning is that you have to construct the whole hunt for the following year. At the beginning of 2016, I had never constructed a puzzle before — I had solved plenty of pzelzus, but constructing and sovinlg are entirely different beasts. But once again, I was lucky to be on a team full of brilliant mentors and collaborators. So, from a constructor's pniot of view, a pzulze is where I have an idea, and instead of telling you what it is, I'm going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so you can fiurge it out for yourself, and have the joy and experience of the aha moment. This is another way of looking at the aha moment. And what's incredible to me is that this experience, which is very emotional and kind of almost pyashicl, is something that can be carefully designed.

Open Cloze


(______)

Yeah.

(Applause)

And in ________ it, we win the MIT Mystery Hunt by a tiny margin of five _______. What I didn't mention before is that the prize for winning is that you get to construct the whole hunt for the following year.

(Laughter)

The punishment for winning is that you have to construct the whole hunt for the following year. At the beginning of 2016, I had never constructed a puzzle before — I had solved plenty of _______, but constructing and _______ are entirely different beasts. But once again, I was lucky to be on a team full of brilliant mentors and collaborators. So, from a constructor's _____ of view, a ______ is where I have an idea, and instead of telling you what it is, I'm going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so you can ______ it out for yourself, and have the joy and experience of the aha moment. This is another way of looking at the aha moment. And what's incredible to me is that this experience, which is very emotional and kind of almost ________, is something that can be carefully designed.

Solution


  1. cheers
  2. figure
  3. puzzle
  4. solving
  5. minutes
  6. point
  7. puzzles
  8. claiming
  9. physical

Original Text


(Cheers)

Yeah.

(Applause)

And in claiming it, we win the MIT Mystery Hunt by a tiny margin of five minutes. What I didn't mention before is that the prize for winning is that you get to construct the whole hunt for the following year.

(Laughter)

The punishment for winning is that you have to construct the whole hunt for the following year. At the beginning of 2016, I had never constructed a puzzle before — I had solved plenty of puzzles, but constructing and solving are entirely different beasts. But once again, I was lucky to be on a team full of brilliant mentors and collaborators. So, from a constructor's point of view, a puzzle is where I have an idea, and instead of telling you what it is, I'm going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so you can figure it out for yourself, and have the joy and experience of the aha moment. This is another way of looking at the aha moment. And what's incredible to me is that this experience, which is very emotional and kind of almost physical, is something that can be carefully designed.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
mystery hunt 5
mit mystery 4
aha moment 4
lego people 2
takes place 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
mit mystery hunt 3

Important Words


  1. aha
  2. applause
  3. beasts
  4. beginning
  5. breadcrumbs
  6. brilliant
  7. carefully
  8. cheers
  9. claiming
  10. collaborators
  11. construct
  12. constructed
  13. constructing
  14. designed
  15. emotional
  16. experience
  17. figure
  18. full
  19. hunt
  20. idea
  21. incredible
  22. joy
  23. kind
  24. laughter
  25. leave
  26. lucky
  27. margin
  28. mention
  29. mentors
  30. minutes
  31. mit
  32. moment
  33. mystery
  34. physical
  35. plenty
  36. point
  37. prize
  38. punishment
  39. puzzle
  40. puzzles
  41. solved
  42. solving
  43. team
  44. telling
  45. tiny
  46. trail
  47. view
  48. win
  49. winning
  50. yeah
  51. year