Saturday, June 16, 2007

Google USPC 2007

In just less than 30 minutes I'm going to be writing the annual United States Puzzle Competition, sponsored by Google. The top finishers are invited to compete for the US at the World Puzzle Competition, this year to be held in Rio de Janiero. The competition also serves as the Canadian qualifier.

The competition consists of about 20 questions of varying point values, to be completed over the course of 2.5 hours. It is thought to be unlikely for anyone to complete all the puzzles in the alloted time. The puzzles vary in format from sudoku-esque puzzles to puzzles like you might find in a kiddie puzzle book, namely the puzzle asking you to find the 10 differences between the two pictures.

I first heard about this competition through slashdot just over 3 years ago. This is my third time writing. Last year I came 19th in Canada, which put me in about the 90th percentile of competition writers, although I wouldn't quote me on that. I'm hoping to do better this year, but I'm not expecting to. The results will come out on or about the 20th of June.

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