What is the puzzlehunt?
The UT Puzzlehunt is a free, day-long competition between teams of UT students. Throughout the day, teams will attempt to solve puzzles, mystery trails, brain teasers, and do all sorts of other fun things that require varying amounts of brain power, knowledge, creativity, and insight. The solving of the puzzles will culminate in the discovery of The Treasure. The Treasure will be hidden somewhere on the UT campus, and only a combination of puzzle solutions will reveal its location.

When will the puzzlehunt be held? How long will it last?
This first annual UT Puzzlehunt will be held on Saturday, November 4, 2000. It will begin at 9:28 AM. Teams will spend the day solving puzzles, roaming around campus, and searching for the treasure. The treasure will probably be found by the early afternoon. After it is found, all the teams will meet for a wrap-up session where the winners will be announced and the solutions to the puzzles will be explained.

What types of puzzles can I expect?
All types of puzzles, ranging from trivia stumpers to cryptograms will be part of the puzzlehunt. No one type of smarts will ensure success; crossword fiends, math majors, and liberal arts-types will all find that they make invaluable contributions to a team. All of the puzzles will have simple, one-word solutions. To get a more complete idea of the puzzles you can expect, visit our sample puzzles page.

How can I participate in the UT Puzzlehunt?
Just sign up! Anyone can participate in the hunt, and it's free of charge. Players will compete on teams of eight to twelve. To register your team, go to the registration page and sign-up.

Where can I find more details about the UT Puzzlehunt?
Part of the fun of the hunt is not knowing exactly what to expect. If you go in expecting a certain type of puzzle, and expecting to apply a certain kind of thinking, you will be hit by a curve ball. Still, it's important to be clear on the rules that do exist. These and other minutia of the hunt can be found on our rules page.

Why do I have to accept cookies to log in to my team site?
Since we have limited web resources, we had two options for the team site security. We could either have people enter their username and password each time they viewed a page, or we could use cookies. We decided that the burden of entering a username and password possibly hundreds of times on the day of the hunt would have been burdensome. The cookie used to login is deleted as soon as you logout or close your browser.

Where did the idea for the UT puzzlehunt come from?
The creators of the UT puzzlehunt first heard about the idea of a puzzlehunt during an internship at Microsoft, where they participated in an all-day puzzle solving event called "Puzzleday" with a group of other interns from MIT. The Microsoft hunt, and much of the organization of UT Puzzlehunt was originally inspired by the MIT IAP Mystery Hunt.

I still have questions. Who can I ask?
Feel free to contact us with any other questions or concerns you have about the Puzzlehunt.