PuzzleCrack
Encyclopedia
PuzzleCrack is an annual tradition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
. It is a weeklong puzzlehunt
competition that combines problem-solving with computer hacking.
's reflections❘projections
conference in 2002 and 2003, was sponsored by Microsoft, and was run by Microsoft employees and UIUC alumni Josh Michaels and Igor Kofman.
In October 2004, Don Schmidt and Dan Sledz took over as heads of Puzzlehack. The year's contest was simply known as "Puzzle 3".
In 2005, the contest returned under a new name, PuzzleCrack, and was run by past winner and UIUC alumnus Bert Johnson of Allbase, Inc. Google
and ACM provided prizes. 2005's contest involved a record number of participants.
PuzzleCrack 2006 was run from October 16 to October 20, 2006, again by Bert Johnson of Allbase. Prizes were sponsored by Microsoft
, and, once again, records were broken. More than 5,000 people viewed the puzzles and hundreds of teams participated.
PuzzleCrack 2007 took place from October 8 to October 12, 2007 and was run by "The Big Enchilada". Prizes were provided by Amazon.com and Microsoft, and both viewership and participation broke the previous year's records.
PuzzleCrack 2008 took place between October 20 to October 24, 2008, again by "The Big Enchilada". Prizes were provided by Amazon.com and Microsoft. This was the first year where the competition ended in a tie.
PuzzleCrack 2009 was initially delayed to the Spring of 2010 due to time constraints, but as of November 2011, no further PuzzleCrack events have been held.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
. It is a weeklong puzzlehunt
Puzzlehunt
A puzzlehunt is a puzzle game where teams compete to solve a series of puzzles at a particular site, in multiple sites and/or via the internet. Groups of puzzles in a puzzle hunt are often connected by a metapuzzle, leading to answers which combine into a final set of solutions...
competition that combines problem-solving with computer hacking.
History
The competition began in October 2002 under the name Puzzlehack. It took place during the annual UIUC ACMAssociation for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
's reflections❘projections
Reflections Projections
Reflections Projections is an annual technology-related conference hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery...
conference in 2002 and 2003, was sponsored by Microsoft, and was run by Microsoft employees and UIUC alumni Josh Michaels and Igor Kofman.
In October 2004, Don Schmidt and Dan Sledz took over as heads of Puzzlehack. The year's contest was simply known as "Puzzle 3".
In 2005, the contest returned under a new name, PuzzleCrack, and was run by past winner and UIUC alumnus Bert Johnson of Allbase, Inc. Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and ACM provided prizes. 2005's contest involved a record number of participants.
PuzzleCrack 2006 was run from October 16 to October 20, 2006, again by Bert Johnson of Allbase. Prizes were sponsored by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, and, once again, records were broken. More than 5,000 people viewed the puzzles and hundreds of teams participated.
PuzzleCrack 2007 took place from October 8 to October 12, 2007 and was run by "The Big Enchilada". Prizes were provided by Amazon.com and Microsoft, and both viewership and participation broke the previous year's records.
PuzzleCrack 2008 took place between October 20 to October 24, 2008, again by "The Big Enchilada". Prizes were provided by Amazon.com and Microsoft. This was the first year where the competition ended in a tie.
PuzzleCrack 2009 was initially delayed to the Spring of 2010 due to time constraints, but as of November 2011, no further PuzzleCrack events have been held.
Related
PuzzleCrunch is a similar, one-day puzzlehunt which has been run twice during the Spring. The competition was first run by Bert Johnson with Microsoft as a sponsor in 2006. It was last run by "The Big Enchilada" on April 26, 2008, with Amazon.com and Microsoft providing prizes.Past winners
| Event | Date | Winners | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Placement | Team Name | Team Members | ||
| Puzzlehack | October 2002 | 1st | SIGMil | |
| Puzzlehack 2.0 | October 2003 | 1st | Team Geekspotting | Dave Carlisle, Henry Goffin, Bert Johnson, James Laird |
| Puzzle |
October 2004 | 1st | Team Geekspotting | Dave Carlisle, Henry Goffin, Bert Johnson, James Laird, Peter Schlichting |
| PuzzleCrack 2005 | October 2005 | 1st | Jeff Huang, Ludvig Strigeus Ludvig Strigeus Ludvig Strigeus is a Swedish programmer best known for developing software such as the BitTorrent client µTorrent, OpenTTD, and ScummVM... , Wes Henderson, and Teresa Karr |
|
| 2nd | Team Florida | Matt Belcher, Kim Belcher, David Hwang, Erin Wolf, and Mike Treaster | ||
| 3rd | SIGMil | |||
| PuzzleCrack 2006 | October 2006 | 1st | The Big Enchilada | Kyle Harlow, Jason Monchino, Corinne Russell, Jared Russell, Jordan Timmermann, Derrick Wright |
| 2nd | >4 | Jacob Beacham, Michael Almaraz | ||
| 3rd | Kevin Berg, Derek Donahue, and Nick Wagers | |||
| PuzzleCrack 2007 | October 2007 | 1st | Team Turtle | Bob Bregant, Jessica Bregant, and Hilary Wilson |
| 2nd | The SoftwARR Pirates | Kevin Berg, Richard Carlson, Marc Holden | ||
| 3rd | Team Spontoon | Greg Schechter, Stephen Kloder, Benjamin Juang, Marty Hanlon, Lauren Haynes, and Bo Zheng | ||
| PuzzleCrack 2008 | October 2008 | 1st (Tie) | Team Geekspotting | Vicki Bitters, Dave Carlisle, Joe Holzman, Bert Johnson, Toni Johnson |
| 1st (Tie) | The Collective | Jared Suttles, Fred Fettinger, Patrick Auchter, Joe Swantek, Josh Ehlke, Alex Garfield, Mike Lombardi | ||
| 3rd | The Discoverers + Atomic Falcon + AvonPaintball | Greg Schechter, Ryan Kagin, Dan Tan, Nir Friedman, J. Eggleston, David Nilosek, Geoff Carlson, Jack Tubbs | ||