Cisco Euro Challenge
Paddles and Pictures
Rob Howard - SleepMonsters.com / 10.09.2004
The puzzle was a letter/number code to find 8 words, and the answer was staring all the teams in the face. Cisco banners by the start, fluttering in the wind, said; “This is the power of the network now.� Not surprisingly the Cisco ladies team were the first to get it, but they spoiled this good start by later losing their picture pass and getting a 30 minute penalty. Some teams took over 10 minutes to work it out and were kicking themselves for missing the obvious.
From the start it was a one kilometre run round to a shingle beach where the canoes waited. It was hard on the teams after the morning run and some settled for a steady walk in the heat of the afternoon, passing bemused weekend tourists. If the run was hard so was the process of blowing up the big 4 person canoes but it was worth spending time making sure the task was done well.
The beach was a chaotic scene for 20 minutes as the teams got underway, setting off in all directions. There were only 2 seats and 2 paddles, so tactics varied, but most teams throught having the 2 paddlers on the seats gave them more power. The ever inventive Airbus took the seats out and used them as paddles!
As the question points didn’t open for 90 minutes that time was spent visiting IP’s and looking at pictures - very complex and slightly fuzzy pictures, which had to be studied and memorised. It was difficult even after teams had the 6 questions per picture, and the biggest question of all was whether to continue trying to get round the various picture points, or go straight back and settle for a faster time.
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