Orbital Simulator (MIT Mystery Hunt 2020)
< MIT Mystery Hunt 2020(Redirected from Orbital Simulator)
| Orbital Simulator | |
|---|---|
| MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 | |
| Spaceopolis | |
 The puzzle's icon, a tall spinning ride with rocket ships as seats. | |
| Author(s) | Justin Graham |
| Answer | Click to revealPRESENT DAY |
| Links | |
| Puzzle | Link |
| Solution | Link |
Orbital Simulator is a Music ID puzzle (among other things) from the Spaceopolis round of the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt. It's presented as a interactive map with certain cities marked with a number and a rocket ship.
Puzzle Elements[edit | edit source]
- Interactive Media - Map - The puzzle is presented as a Google map with several points marked on it, allowing for zooming and scrolling (which is necessary to identify the cities at those points). Clicking on the markers links solvers to...
- Audio ID - Music - ...audio clips of various songs (mostly 20 seconds long).
- Hint in Flavortext - The flavortext hints towards the connection between the songs and the numbers. The mention of NASA and "first thing in the morning" should lead to...
- Astronomy - Space Travel - ...NASA Wakeup Calls. Each song was sent by NASA to a Space Shuttle mission to wake up the astronauts onboard, which matches the number provided on that song's label.
- Hint in Flavortext - The flavortext also hints at the next step, with the mention of NOAA and the reuse of the "first thing in the morning" clue. This leads to...
- Geography - Time Zones - ...Sunrise Times. Using the date of each of the wake-up calls for each of the missions, solvers can find out what time the "official" sunrise was (via the NOAA site of course).
- Reordering - Chronological - Once solvers have the times, they need to order them from earliest to latest, and then...
- Alphanumeric Substitution Cipher - ...take the minutes of the time (For example, STS 104/Berlin's time is 5:14, so take 14) and convert it to a letter via A1Z26.
- Final Clue Phrase - NOW OR XMAS
- Final Answer Enumeration - Both the final clue phrase AND the final answer are enumerated (3 2 4 and 7 3, respectively)
Final AnswerPRESENT DAY(Meaning both "Today" and "A day with presents"
