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2.02
The Architect
lightbulb_outline   SOLUTION
LIE IN PLACE
BY ADIB SURANI

Cutting and folding the pieces gives the following 5 polycubes, helpfully labelled 1-5 (and coloured here for convenience):

This is a Soma-cube-like puzzle, as evidenced by the total volume of 27, and the goal is to construct a 3x3x3 cube from these polycubes.

There are exactly two solutions to this cube puzzle; obtaining either solution produces the phrase "TWO SOLNS" around the anchor to hint at the existence of a second solution. The two solutions are given as follows:

We note that the anchored face is the same on both cubes, so that we can align the orientations of the two cubes this way.

ESINIRNTREDAUDPOI①RLETWOHGTI②VTWOIEEIE④S⚓SDCICDIS⚓SV④SENDNLOIV②RXYNLOPRIELSLWH③WT①LETG①PITA②INDT②LADE③E③EE③AN①N④IELT④C⑤TE⑤NNN⑤⑤E

This allows numbers on one cube to map to letters on the other cube. Doing this one way spells out LIEIN, and the other way PLACE.

Combining these two phrases naturally produces the final answer LIE IN PLACE.

Author’s notes

I consider this to be a spiritual successor to MUMS' 2010 puzzle Network Ten (which I co-wrote with Yi Huang). The net was so fun to create that I thought solvers would appreciate having five more. I wrote my own code to produce these nets; I'm not aware of any existing general-purpose software that does this at the moment, so if there's enough interest in the script I might clean it up and put it up on github.

That said, the (relatively) low solve rate of the puzzle took us by surprise to be honest. Test-solving had not revealed any issues with the puzzle, so we had assumed it was going to be fairly solvable. I think the low solve rate can be explained by a few factors:

  • Most solvers show a slight(?) aversion towards paper-based puzzles. I suspect most teams might even have a designated "paper guy"
  • There's minimal opportunity to collaborate on what is essentially a single-player puzzle
  • Fatigue from the hunt means you'd much rather burn the puzzle rather than try to find a second solution

The low solve rate also means that this was possibly the most backsolved puzzle in Round 2, as evident from the various teams that guessed LIECHTENSTEIN PALACE (you know who you are). For teams that did manage to see the puzzle all the way to the end though, I hope you found it rewarding!
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