1.03 Tachyon Midi Ether Co-Keypad 1

Status

::FINAL-READY::

Location

Name And Address: "Dorian Clair Laboratories" -- actually Dorian Clair Antique Clock Repair, 1301 Sanchez Street, San Francisco, CA 94131-2005

Parking: Street, some metered (parking will be a challenge!)

Bathroom: No

Food: No

GC PoC: Allen, (415) 475-8463, lab@trenchwood.com

Site PoC: Owner Dorian Clair

Type

Mandatory Puzzle

Plot Setup

• Iconoclast scientist Doctor When has attempted to demonstrate his time machine before an audience of VIPs.
• But it malfunctioned due to a faulty key component--tachyon midi ether co-keypad #34.
• The malfunction is causing the Doctor to bounce around randomly in time from era to era, facing untold dangers!
• In order to rescue him, Doctor When's visiting colleague, Prof. Chronos, has implored the visitors to help by rushing to a nearby expert and asking for his help with designing a replacement.

How To Give To Teams

All handled by staff at the Institute at the end of 1.02 Core Dump; see its Staff Instructions.

Props

• 55 or 58 blank keypad grid sheets (3 per team + 7 spares)
• 35 or 37 copies of Connections Requirements Analysis for Pad #34 (2 per team + 3 spares);
• 17 or 18 sets of keypad design kits (1 per team + 1 spare)
• Lab coat
• "Dorian Clair Laboratories" name badge and lanyard

Plot Point to Convey

The machine is partially fixed after co-keypad designs are sent to the Institute, new co-keypads are manufactured and installed.

Short Description

Team designs new co-keypad #34 based on specifications from Prof. Dorian Clair to replace damaged one.

Open Time Period

Saturday, 10:25 AM to till all teams (16 for Game 1, 17 for Game 2) pick up (approximately 11:15 AM). Any teams that don't solve the previous puzzle by 11:20 will be skipped; around 11:30, if you have not seen all the teams, call HQ for further instructions.

Staff Instructions

Your Role: You're a lab assistant to Professor Dorian Clair, noted expert on temporal mechanics.

What To Wear:

• Lab coat
• Name badge with Dorian Clair Laboratories insert

What Your Character Knows:

• You've been working on the design of tachyon midi ether co-keypads with Prof. Chronos.
• You have design kits, but you have never actually made a working co-keypad.
• There are millions of possible configurations so you won't be able to help the team until they actually give you the proper number (34).
• You do not know about Doctor When or the Grand Unveiling. And as far as you know, Prof. Chronos is still in New England.

Puzzles At This Site: Only Co-Keypad 1

Where To Get Materials: GC HQ

Site Setup:

• Greet Mr. Clair.
• Call or e-mail GC so we know you are ready to receive teams.
• Have your props ready.

Handout Script:

Discreetly keep count of how many teams have picked up their puzzle (or just count how many puzzles you have to start...you're done when you've handed out the right number!).

To handout puzzle, say words to the effect of,

PLAYERS:

Prof. Clair, we need your help! Doctor When has become lost in time because one of the tachyon midi ether co-keypads in his time machine failed.

PROF. DORIAN CLAIR/LAB ASSISTANT:

I'm sorry, who sent you here again?

PLAYERS:

Professor Catherine Chronos.

PROF. DORIAN CLAIR/LAB ASSISTANT:

Professor Chronos? Here?! I thought she was in New England. But that's terrible! Of course I'll help. Unfortunately I've never created a complete tachyon midi ether co-keypad; the materials are way too finicky. But I do have a design kit that should help. [Hands players the kit.] And here are a few blank sheets with instructions. Unfortunately, this won't do you much good unless you have a Connection Requirements Analysis Printout. There are millions of configurations and I'll need to know the keypad number to get you the right piece of CRAP. You wouldn't happen to have the number of the co-keypad that was broken, would you?

PLAYERS:

Number 34.

PROF. DORIAN CLAIR/LAB ASSISTANT

Ah yes, I should have guessed. Prof. Chronos always knew that one was going to be fragile. Let me pull out Connection Requirements Analysis Printout #34. With that and the kit, you should be able to figure out a good design to photograph and send to Professor Chronos.

Get printout and hand it to team.

Hints: Teams may call in for hints. But if you familiarize yourself with the puzzle, feel free to give hints.

Answers: Teams have been instructed to each email a picture of their solution to the Institute. If they try to give their answer to you, remind them to follow their instructions.

Site Close Down:

• Thank the host (Dorian Clair Clock Repair). They're nice people.
• Call GC to tell us you're shutting down.
• Return your name badge(s) and lanyard to GC HQ at the end of your shift

Other Instructions:

• Stay in character.
• Except ... if a team says "time out," break character and help them.

Puzzle Answer

(if prompted: username: tester, password: streetsetter)

http://trenchwood.com/keypad/answers/34.html

Budget

A set of three keypads is $4.75 from Electronic Surplus. Wei-Hwa bought 34 sets (in case some get destroyed during prototyping). Total price, $181.50 (including $20 shipping).

More will be needed for the cases.

Credits

Wei-Hwa - concept, prototype, implementation

Manager

Wei-Hwa

Hints

Ask teams what they have done, probing details if necessary (often this will get a team unstuck by themselves).

Response to Correct Answer

As soon as a team's answer is confirmed as correct ([1]), use Boomerang to program the email below to be sent about 15 minutes later.

Immediately after sending this email proceed to 1.04 Choose Your Own Adventure#How To Give To Teams.

Subject: OPTIONAL Project: More Co-keypad Design

Research Project Title: More Co-keypad Design
Objective: Design replacements for multiple broken tachyon midi ether co-keypads
Location: N/A

Notes:

Thanks so much for sending us a working design for co-keypad #34.

Unfortunately, as we opened up the machine to install your design, we noticed some damage on other tachyon midi ether co-keypads. Our best guess is that while #34 was out of commission its load spilled over onto the remaining ones which caused some of them to fail. Of course, that caused more load on the other ones. And, to keep a long story short, we have a lot more than one broken co-keypad right now.

We recruited many of the other brilliant attendees you met at the Grand Unveiling to work on them. But if you have some spare cycles we'd greatly appreciate it if you could also redesign some more co-keypads (since you were so good at re-designing #34).

HOWEVER, don't let co-keypad design slow you down from your primary task, which right now is to uncover the password to Doctor When's Brain-O-Matic 9000 supercomputer.

Since we are trying to coordinate many different groups and we don't want people to be duplicating efforts, we installed an off-the-shelf system to manage these efforts, called the Gross Repair Operations Supervision System (or GROSS for short).

You can read the User's Guide for GROSS here:

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1mxwkUv39kFjhb1OPKXHYf5NHJYoYseK8OYjwOgVvwKQ

When you think you understand it, please log into GROSS here:

http://trenchwood.com/keypad/

Just as a start, we've assigned two broken co-keypads to you. Hopefully everything will make sense. Just let us know if you need help. If you need more blank co-keypad grids, we'll try to get some to the next lab assistant you see.

If you want to check our overall status, please visit the GROSS dashboard at:

http://trenchwood.com/keypad/dashboard.php

Again, this task is OPTIONAL -- don't let it distract you from your main task. But we do have dozens of broken co-keypads already and the time machine won't be fully functional until enough of them are fixed, so please help us when you can.

Other Notes

This is a "trainer" puzzle for a series of them appearing later in the act.