1.11.03 Particle Zoo

Order

1.07.05

Status

::FINAL::

Location

Status: Smith Clock Co., 2799 Bush Street, San Francisco

GC PoC: Allen, (650) 395-8463, lab@trenchwood.com

Site PoC: Mr. Smith himself who should be onsite

Parking: Street; parking lot on Sutter Street between Divisadero and Broderick Streets, if necessary

Bathrooms: Unlikely, though perhaps if you ask Mr. Smith....

Food: No

Notes: None

Type

Optional Puzzle (SCIENTIST)

How To Give To Teams

Lab assistant over the phone says words to the effect of

We need your help with something else. It seems that when Doctor When had his "incident" at the Big Bang, it ignited a proliferation of new elementary particles. We think that we need to include these new particles in our calculations as we continue to tune the tine machine, but we're not exactly how to approach the problem. Go to Smith Clock Repair at 2799 Bush Street in San Francisco; one of the lab assistants at their secret lab should be working on the report. Call the Institute and speak with any lab assistant when you're done.

SUPPLEMENTAL EMAIL

Research Project Title: Particle Zoo
Objective: Find out how to deal with proliferation of particles caused by Doctor When's "incident" at the Big Bang
Location:  Smith Clock Repair at 2799 Bush Street, San Francisco
 Upon Completion: Call the Institute and speak with any lab assistant
 Parking:  Street; parking lot on Sutter Street between Divisadero and Broderick Streets, if necessary
 Need To Park: No; if parking is difficult some team members may get the research materials while the other drive around the block
 Bathrooms At Location:  No
 Food At Location:  Various restaurants on Divisadero

At the location the lab assistant just hands out the puzzle upon request.

Plot Setup

When Doctor When had his "incident" at the Big Bang, he somehow ignited a proliferation of new elementary particles, and the lab assistants are worried that the time machine isn't tuned correctly to account for these - they need the players' help to figure out the theoretical approach that will help them "manage" these new particles.

Props

• 16 copies of Particle Zoo puzzle (1 per team, with 0 extras)
• 1 Hint sheet for Particle Zoo
• Lab coat (should have from opening scene at Trenchwood Institute) -- WEAR THIS
• Smith Clock Co. name badge insert and lanyard (should have lanyard from opening scene; badge is probably hidden within the plastic pocket) -- WEAR THIS (with new insert)

Plot Point to Convey

The players have found out the theoretical approach to managing the particles, thus allowing the lab assistants to correctly adjust the time machine.

Short Description

Players need to classify a large number of "particles" (similar images).

Open Time Period

Saturday, 4 PM - 5 PM

Staff Instructions

Your Role: You are a lab assistant at Smith Clock Co., another time-oriented research facility.

Site Setup:

• Greet Mr. Smith
• Call GC

Handout Instructions: Teams will come and ask for the Particle Zoo research project. Hand it to them.

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

Answers: Teams have been instructed to call in their answer to the Institute.

Site Close Down: Clean up, thank host, call GC

Other Instructions:

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

Detailed Description

Players receive a printout with 23 columns of images, and need to classify those images into sets. Having done so, they figure out letters for each set, which they then must figure out how to order correctly in order to read the final message.

Puzzle Answer

CHRONOZOIC SPACETIME FIELD THEORY

Puzzle Solution

1) Players receive pages with columns of images. These images belong to 30 "groups", such as peace signs, balls, and moons.

2) Players must figure out what the groups are, and the order of the groups. The order is consistent in every column, but each column only contains images from some of the groups.

3) The order of the groups is as follows. (Exact names don't matter.) The numbers in parentheses indicate the column(s) that disambiguates the order of that group and the next.

Lamp (5,15,20)
Star (18,20)
Peace sign (20)
Triangle (20)
Christmas ornament (18)
Dial or gauge (5,18,19)
No smoking sign (5,18)
Hole or window (9)
Globe or Earth (1,7,21)
Asterisk (21)
Ball (9)
Exclamation point (16)
Trivial Pursuit piece (1,3)
Red circle (1)
Black & yellow travel sign (5,12)
Face (12)
Ancient coin (1,9,13,16)
Screw (5,9,13)
Keyhole (5,18)
Clock (5,20)
Handicapped emblem (5,19)
Dog (18)
Bolt (4)
Moon (14,15,21)
Arrow (14,15)
Green circle (5,18)
Pizza logo (5,18)
Sun (5,15,18,20)
Shower holes; may be mistaken for phone speaker holes or something similar (9,15,18)
Blue & white food/drink sign

4) Next, write down the column numbers that each symbol group appears in. For instance, the lamp appears in columns 3, 5, 15, 15, 20, and 25. (This includes appearing twice in column 15.)

5) Column numbers become letters (1=A, 2=B, etc.) For instance, the letters for the lamp group are C, E, O, O, T, Y.

6) Each group's letters anagram to the name of an animal (e.g., the lamp group anagrams to COYOTE). The animals are:

Lamp        -        COYOTE
Star        -        HORNET
Peace sign  -        RABBIT
Triangle    -        OCELOT
Christmas ornament - NUTRIA
Dial or gauge -      OSPREY
No smoking sign -    ZEBRAS
Hole        -        ORIOLE
Globe or Earth -     IGUANA
Asterisk    -        COUGAR
Ball        -        SQUIDS
Exclamation point -  PIGEON
Triv. Purs. piece -  ALPACA
Red circle  -        CAIMAN
B & Y travel sign -  EAGLES
Face        -        TURTLE
Ancient coin -       IMPALA
Screw       -        MAGPIE
Keyhole     -        ERMINE
Clock       -        FERRET
Handicapped emblem - IBEXES
Dog         -        EGRETS
Bolt        -        LIZARD
Moon        -        DUGONG
Arrow       -        TOUCAN
Green circle -       HERONS
Pizza logo  -        EARWIG
Sun         -        OYSTER
Shower holes -       RHINOS
Blue & white sign -  YORKIE

7) The first letters of each animal, in order, give CHRONOZOIC SPACETIME FIELD THEORY, the answer.

Files for the Act 1 and Act 2 versions, respectively:

File:Proliferation of Particles.pdf File:Proliferation of Particles Act 2.doc

Budget

Minimal

Credits

Design by David Greenspan

Manager

David Greenspan

Hints

- There are clearly "groups" of symbols that belong together. A good first step is to identify what the groups are. (Note that exact names don't matter).

- There are 30 groups in total. (The toughest group to be precise about is probably the pizza logos/signs.)

- Note that if two or more images from one group appear in a single column, they always appear together.

- That's because the order is always consistent. In fact, after classifying the groups, the second key step is to figure out the order of the groups, from examining the orders of the symbols in each individual column. Columns with many symbols are good places to start.

- There are lots of symbols in some columns - 1, 5, 9, 15 are some examples. Does that suggest anything?

- The column numbers represent letters (for example, 1, 5, 9, 15 are a, e, i, o respectively).

- Each group appears six times, yielding six letters. How do we order the letters?

- Hmmm. Check the flavor text. What are these particles called?

- They're called zuons. And some of the letter combos might be suspicious - try the one containing a Q.

- D,I,Q,S,S,U anagrams to SQUIDS. Hey, that's an animal!

- "Zuons" - this is a "zoo" of particles. Each group anagrams to an animal word.

- Some of the anagrams are easy; others are pretty hard. In fact, you may never have heard of some of them before, and would need an anagram solver with a large dictionary to find. The toughest ones are probably OCELOT, NUTRIA, DUGONG, and YORKIE.

- What now? Well, you've got a lot of animal names - have you written them all down? In order?

- Write the animals in the order of the groups. Read down the first letters of each.

202751 ==Response to Correct Answer== Lab assistant over the phone says words to the effect of,

Of course! Chronozoic spacetime field theory is the perfect theoretical approach to figuring out how to tune the time machine to account for these new particles! In fact, it's easy - we can make the adjustments almost instantly.

There - we're done. Now we can send Doctor When to 1986 just like he requested. We've opened a portal for him and are sending him back to school!

Enter code 202751 in the View-O-Scope remote access program, and then we can see if it worked. I'll hang up now and watch as well. If you need to, you can call us at the lab after you watch the Doctor on the View-O-Scope.

To Do

• Enhance "How To Give To Teams"