College Puzzle Challenge 2005: Wonders of the World
Okay, so it looks like we’re now ready to unveil this to the world. As many people already know, Microsoft has a bit of a penchant for puzzles. We’re notorious for using puzzles as part of our interview process… so much so that entire books have been written about our use of puzzles, particularly William Poundstone’s How Would You Move Mount Fuji?. But the love of puzzles at Microsoft isn’t limited to a simple riddles that can be solved in an interview, like asking why manhole covers are round, but it extends into the realm of the ridiculous. There are no less than 4 annual events puzzle-solving events held on Microsoft’s Redmond campus, two for interns, and two for full-time employees, that pit employees against each other for fame and glory.
In the past few years, Microsoft’s recruiting department has begun using puzzle competitions as a recruiting tool, to help us find the best and brightest at schools, and also to spread the name of Microsoft among students. In 2003, Microsoft held their first event at the University of Michigan, a 24-hour puzzle competition with 4-person teams called “An All-Night Affair.” At this time, I was a junior at U of M’s College of Engineering, and I took part in All-Night Affair as a student. All-Night Affair was a lot of fun, but not without its problems… the 24-hour time format posed some problems, since it was a little too long to comfortably stay awake for, and too short to sleep for even a few hours and feel that one had done their best. The second puzzle event that Microsoft hosted at U of M was in 2004, was a 12-hour, 4-person team affair, and was dubbed “Puzzle Royale.” The cool thing about Puzzle Royale was that not only competition within the school, but also with teams from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Toronto.
Well this year, I’ve finally gotten my chance to work on this event, and we’ve expanded it even more. This year, we’re going to have the following eight schools participating:
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- University of Michigan
- University of Southern California
- University of Texas
- University of Toronto
If you attend any one of these schools, we cordially invite you to participate. The event is going to take place from Noon to Midnight (EST) on November 12th, 2005. That means that it will be kicking off at the same time (12:00 PM EST, 11:00 AM CST, 10:00 AM MST, or 9:00 AM PST, depending on your location), and will last for 12 hours, with live competition between schools the whole time. The event is free of charge, and food will be provided, in addition to prizes for the overall winners, and the winning teams at each school.
The event website, where you can read more information about the event, and register your team of 4 puzzlers, is located at http://www.collegepuzzlechallenge.com/. This is the new long-term name for the event, and we hope to be able to run it for several more years, and we’ll always keep the most up-to-date information at this website. This year, our theme is Wonders of the World: A Puzzler in Peril.
To get more news as it develops, you can bookmark the College Puzzle Challenge section of my blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/jyorke/archive/category/10902.aspx or subscribe to the RSS feed for the same section at http://blogs.msdn.com/jyorke/rss.aspx?CategoryID=10902. I’ll be asking for feedback from the community on certain things as we prepare for the day of puzzle challenge, so please keep reading, and happy puzzling!