Projects - Puzzle News 2002

The city of Oulu, located on the Northern part of the Baltic Sea, was founded in 1605, and today is the sixth largest city of Finland. Here on September 24-29, 2002 eighteens puzzle teams from all over the World gathered to compete in puzzle solving. This World Puzzle Championship was held by Suomen puzzle-harrastajat Ahaa! (Finnish Puzzle Association Aha!).

The team winners 2002 are:
1st Place - Japan;
2nd Place - Germany;
3rd Place - USA.

The individual 2002 winners:
1st Place - Niels Roest, The Netherlands;
2nd Place - Ulrich Voight, Germany;
3rd Place - Roland Voight, Germany.

The 12th World Puzzle Championship will be held in 2003 in Papendal, The Netherlands.

More details see at wpc.puzzles.com.

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GAMES 25th Anniversary

GAMES Magazine - Cover of September 2002 Issue

Games Magazine - 25 Years

GAMES Magazine celebrates its 25th anniversary! Every two months a lot of very interesting things can be found in their issues: puzzles, games, reviews, articles, contests. Every puzzle and game lover know this World's most renowned magazine, and eagerly awaits on every next issue full of fun and puzzling. Our warmest congratulations to all the GAMES folks. Happy Birthday!

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Rubik's Cube - New 25 years

2003 World Rubik's Games Championships

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, August 23-24, 2003

Next year the 2nd World Rubik's Games Championships will be held. The 1st World Championship was held twenty years ago - on June 5, 1982 - in Budapest, Hungary, at the Vigado Concert Hall. Minh Thai of USA was the winner of that Championship.

"This time we are expanding the Championships to include not only the 3x3x3, but the 4x4x4,5x5x5 and all other Rubik's Games. World Records will be set and broken during the two day event." - the Organizers say.

To see all the details visit the official site of the 2003 World Rubik's Games Championships.

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Sliding Puzzles at Science News

Logic in the Blocks

by Ivars Peterson

Ivars Peterson writes in Science News about the complexity of sliding block puzzles. "In recent years, sliding-block puzzles have served as proving grounds for novel motion-planning strategies. They have also attracted the attention of computer scientists interested in the fundamental limits of computation - for example, in determining the relative running time or amount of memory a computer would require to solve various types of demanding problems in their most difficult form." - he writes.

Then Ivars continues: "One sliding-block puzzle that has played a starring role in several recent research efforts is Rush Hour, a commercial product first distributed in the United States in 1996. A player starts with rectangular blocks shaped like cars and trucks, each in a given location on a square tray, and figures out a sequence of moves that frees a target vehicle from the traffic jam and gets it to the exit."

The whole article contains a lot of great and precise observations on the matters, including a big reference part.

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IPP 22: Top Puzzle Designs

The 2nd IPP Puzzle Design Competition - Results

The 2nd annual IPP Puzzle Design Competition established to promote and recognize innovative new designs of mechanical puzzles was held in conjunction with IPP22 with judging and awards in August 2002 in Antwerp, Belgium.

And again there were many great and original puzzle designs participating in this great contest. To see more details on the prize winners, all the participating designs visit: http://www.puzzleworld.org/DesignCompetition/.

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IPP 22: Belgian Puzzle Sky

IPP 22

The 22nd International Puzzle Party

Antwerp, Belgium, August 9-13, 2002

IPP22 was held in Antwerp, Belgium in August of 2002. 319 puzzle enthusiasts - serious collectors of mechanical puzzles, puzzle designers, solvers, programmers, performers, writers, and producers - from 22 countries attended this fantastic puzzle gathering.

The organizers proposed a very rich program with a lot of memorable excursions across Belgium and the Netherlands, and of course fantastic puzzle events full of puzzles and puzzling in every imaginable forms. Fantastic job!

Next International Puzzle Party will be held in 2003 in Chicago.

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Optimization Puzzles - Year 2002

Puzzle Design Tournament 2002

May-June, 2002

Hot News!
The First Annual Puzzle Design Tournament has just finished. Its results are posted at the site.

PDT 2003 will start on May, 2003.

*****
Puzzle Design Tournament (PDT) is an annual online event organized by Cihan Altay. It's simply a "send one-solve multi optimization puzzles" competition.

Further details on the Tournament - puzzle types, design publication and answer checking, rating and scoring systems, results - can be found directly at the site.

Deadline of puzzle submission was on May 24, 2002.
Deadline of sending answers - last minute of June 22, 2002 (GMT +02:00).

There are 9 participants this year. Now you can download the .pdf file with all the nine puzzles submitted to Puzzle Design Tournament 2002.

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Qualifying Puzzle Test 2002

Online Qualifying Test

June 15, 2002, 1pm EDT (GMT-4)

Hot News!
The Team USA qualifying test to select new members of the USA, Canadian, and Finnish teams at the World Puzzle Championship in Finland, 2002, was held on June 15, 2002.

For the second year in a row, Roger "Tiger" Barkan is the winner of the 2002 Qualifying Test and will rejoin the US Team for the 11th World Puzzle Championship in Finland. Congratulations!

The test's results are available at the 2002 Test Summary Page.

*****
It's the Team USA qualifying test to select new members of the US Team at the World Puzzle Championship in Finland, 2002. Canada and Finland also use this test to select their team members.

To take part in this online puzzle test you need to register before June 13, 2002, using the online Entry Form.

Before the qualifying test, you can read the Test Rules, try the Practice Test, take a look at previous Qualifying Tests, and read the Hints and Tips page.

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New Puzzle Test on the Web

PQRST Puzzle Competition

This new puzzle competition is starting by Cihan Altay at: http://www.otuzoyun.com/. PQRST is a quarterly (January, April, July and October) online puzzle competition open to everybody. PQRST 01 starts on 13 April 2002 Saturday at 8:00 PM (GMT +02:00). The test has a dozen of different rules; see details at: http://www.otuzoyun.com/pqrst/.

Each PQRST test includes 10 puzzles of different kinds downloadable as a pdf file at the exact time of the competition. Each puzzle will have an "answer key" provided to check your answers (if you solve the puzzle you'll get the correct key).

The solvers have exactly seven days to submit their answers and ratings to all puzzles via answer page. All the results for every PQRST will be posted within one week after the deadline.

2002 Yad S'loof Lirpa - Yad Gnilzzup Taerg

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Puzzles on Television

Jerry Slocum Puzzles on Television in the USA & Canada

Jerry Slocum presented some of his puzzles on the Martha Stewart Living Television program on the CBS network on April Fool's Day (Monday April 1, 2002).

At the TV Program Guide page click [Apr 1] to enter into the Daily Lineup page and then click "Project: Puzzle with Jerry". Or go to the Puzzle with Jerry page directly.

Two segments were recorded with Martha trying to solve some of the nineteen puzzles that Jerry presented. Martha was amazing at solving Sam Loyd's Buttonhole Puzzle, but needed help with the “T” Puzzle. She was interested in three puzzle vessels, several of Harry Eng's impossible puzzles, the Vanishing Leprechauns, several Kamei take-apart puzzles, the four-piece jigsaw puzzle and others.

The Martha Stewart Living Television program appears weekdays on the CBS network throughout the USA and parts of Canada. In Los Angeles (KCBS), New York (WCBS), San Francisco (KPIX) and Boston (WBZ) the one hour program begins at 9:00 am local time. However, in other cities the broadcast time varies widely, so please check your local newspaper or TV Guide.

-- Nobnet Info & Puzzles.com

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ThinkFun's Top Puzzle Goes Life-Size!!

Rush Hour® at MTV® as a Real World/Road Rules Challenge

Rush Hour^® on MTV^®!

MTV®, April 15, 2002, 10PM

On April 15, 2002, the cast of MTV^®'s Real World/Road Rules Challenge will face "The Rush Hour Challenge." The members of the show will participate in a life-size version of the popular game Rush Hour^®, the traffic jam puzzle that turns gridlock into a game - complete with real cars.

The creators of the show partnered with the Saturn™ Corporation to create a life-size Rush Hour^®. Members of each challenge team will take turns attempting to drive one of the cars to the exit on the game board. Eight other cars on the game board block their path to the exit. The teams will race against the clock to see who can make it out of the mess in the least amount of time without destroying the cars.

Tune in Monday, April 15, 2002 at 10PM to see which of the teams make it out of Rush Hour^®!

Meanwhile you can learn more about Rush Hour® and even play it.

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Puzzling in Finland - Year 2002

Finnish Puzzle Party 2002

This year FPP2002 will be held in Finland on May 11, 2002, Saturday. The Party locations are Helsinki and Vantaa at Vantaa HEUREKA Science Center near Helsinki.

All puzzle enthusiasts from all over the World are welcome to attend. For any details please contact Matti Linkola.

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World Puzzle Tournament in a Land of Thousand of Lakes

11WPC

The 11th World Puzzle Championship & Congress

The 11th World Puzzle Championship will be held in Oulu, Finland.

The city of Oulu was founded in 1605, and today is the sixth largest city of Finland. Oulu has Finland's second largest university and many public and private research institutes.
The region has rapidly growing high technology industry. Oulu, located on the Northern part of the Baltic Sea, has good communication links to the largest European centers.

The organizer of the 11th World Puzzle Championship is Suomen puzzle-harrastajat Ahaa! (Finnish Puzzle Association Aha!).

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Puzzle Party at the Big Apple

NYPP

The New York Puzzle Party

The first puzzle event of this year was the first New York Puzzle Party organized by Tom Cutrofello. It was held on Saturday January 26, 2002 at the Trevor Day School.

There was a lot of puzzling and puzzle fun at this first NY Puzzle Party. Frans de Vreugd from the Netherlands was giving interesting lectures on puzzles from China and Mongolia. The NYPP was nice and successful.