Northern NSW da Vinci Decathlon SAMPLE

Transcription

1 Task developed Kathy Harrison, Methodist Ladies College, 2013 Northern NSW da Vinci Decathlon SAMPLE An academic gala day for years 7 and 8 Code Breaking Session 3 Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes! Leonard da Vinci. Team Number

2 Code Breaking (50 points) Dear Team, I am so sorry that I have not included you in the search for the clues for the TripleZ Sound and Light competition. I know that I said that I could do it alone but now I can see that the only way to make progress is through team work. I promise that even though I have done a whole lot of work, which I will now share with you, I will split the prize evenly between all who contribute. I really hope you will say Yes! and help me now. Well, here s what I have. The guidelines say that there will be a message hidden in the Sound and Light show at the historic village. A different part will appear each day. I have a copy of the script, the score and the behind the scenes notes. So far I have figured out that there is some variation to the show each night. That means that you need to attend every night and know what the performance should look like before there are any variations. I have collected the variations so far but I have no idea what they mean. That is where you come in. I have put the variations in the order in which they occurred. However, I think that they are not in order of difficulty Sorry, but I m sure you will figure it out. Oh! I forgot to mention that the messages will give a series of clues. These clues will tell you what to do to claim the prize. Let me know what you find out! Good Luck!

3 Variation 1: When the lights were going down in the village, (just before the thunder storm), five of the actors came out carrying burning torches. They stood facing us and then some of them turned around. Then all of them faced us and then again some of them turned around. The pattern was repeated so that I could record it and then all the torches went out. Here is a sketch of how it looked: Variation 2: This one was a gift. Apparently, they were promoting the competition this day. So we were told on entry that there would be a message on every seat. This is what was on mine. EX XLI HE ZMRGM HIGEXLPSR PSKS. Variation 3: The program had some strange decoration along the bottom edge this did not appear on any other night..

4 Variation 4: On the fourth night, it was all about rhythm. The drumming in the background was really strange. It repeated over and over and I was able to understand that the fast beats came in groups. There were a number of beats in a row, never longer than 9 beats, then a break, and then more beats. Every now and again, the break was a bit longer. So the first bit was like this the x represents a beat and you can see that there are some breaks xxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx xx xxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx Variation 5: The program was the only different thing I found tonight. The credits looked like this: Communications: SRXTTXL YNXM WXH SNXXTNXC DRXW TSXTRXHS XHT Variation 6: Looking at the back of the seats in front of me tonight, I saw that the seat labels had been mixed up. I was expecting to see A1, A2, A3 But instead the two rows in front of me looked like this: Each line represents a chair N W O H V T E U B R O O Y U A E H N M E Y U N E T E T E T D R S E D H S R E A D E S

5 Variation 7: Now, I am particularly proud of finding this. It was hidden in the music. There was a really weird tune played in the middle of what was supposed to be folk singing. There were no words, just this tune played on its own. Luckily, I can write music, so here is the tune: (Your problem is to find what it means ) I m pretty sure that the second line is the important bit. Variation 8: At this performance, I saw that there was a change in the animals that appeared when they showed the villagers bringing the animals in for the night. I made a list of the animals (it was a little weird so easy to spot.) Dingo Rabbit Iguana Viper Echidna Variation 9: Again the credits were a bit strange. This song accreditation appeared: Th psswrd s prsvrnc. Written and performed by 3Z Code.

6 Code Breaking Answers Team No: Clue 1 Message Clue 2 Clue 3 Clue 4 Clue 5 Clue 6 Clue 7 Clue 8 Clue 9 10/ What do you think it all means? What do you have to do and say now? (5 marks for each correctly decoded clue + 5 marks for putting it all together to claim the prize)