At most eight members on each team should consider themselves experienced puzzle hunters.
Participants may only register with one team.
The Caltech Puzzle Hunt will begin November 30, 2018, at noon PST.
The Caltech Puzzle Hunt will end December 17, 2018, at noon PST. However, HQ respond times will likely be longer after the first teams finish. Furthermore, the on-campus endgame will only be available for a limited period of time; we plan on making it available for at least three teams to complete the endgame, but cannot guarantee that subsequent teams will be able to experience it.
FORMAT
When you begin the hunt, you will have access to a few puzzles. As you complete puzzles, more will become available.
Puzzle answers should be submitted on the individual puzzle's pages. Answers are all strings of English alphabetic characters. The answer checker will strip out any numerals, punctuation, or other such characters.
At certain points during the hunt, you may earn access to hints. Information on how the hinting system works will be described when you earn access.
Incorrect answers will not result in penalties that are applied to final scores for this event.
PRIZES
The winner will be the team that recovers a certain physical object first. The identity and location of this object will become clear. For your convenience, we can reveal that the physical object is located within the United States, in a ZIP code between 90000 and 92999, inclusive.
Prizes will be awarded to the winning team that includes on-campus members of the Caltech community, as well as the next 2 similarly eligible teams to submit correct answers to the final metapuzzle.
First place will win $300, second place will win $200, and third place will win $100.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST
Unsporting conduct may result in disqualification. Unsporting conduct includes, but is not limited to, hacking the hunt website or any linked websites, sabotage, answer theft, stalking, espionage, abuse, or collusion, e.g. no crime and treason.
Using the Internet for research and reference is permitted, and, frankly, probably necessary.
You do not need to look at the raw HTML of any puzzle.
Decisions regarding the hunt, including, but not limited to, what constitutes unsporting conduct, eligibility of teams or team members, correctness of answers, and final placement of teams lies in the sole discretion of the editors of the hunt. All decisions are final.