CS50 Puzzle Day 2020 Experience

For me, puzzle cracking always satisfied my childhood mysteries. Whether it was solving puzzles or writing secret messages, I was always ready to occupy it. Discovering the world of competitive puzzles and solving them was a dream come true, now puzzles became a sharing of experience, and letting me bond with a group of people with the same perspective.

CS50, the college’s introductory course in computer science (CS), begins with an event called CS50 Puzzle Day each year, as an opportunity for students to collaborate with family and friends globally as a team to solve a packet of puzzles. This event shares a message that CS isn’t only about programming but more about problem-solving. The puzzle consists of questions and a hint that helps us to solve the puzzle.

This was the first time, I had registered for this contest through our college, and was very eager to solve the riddle. I along with my sister worked very hard to solve the perplexing puzzles. In spite of our effort, we couldn’t find a solution for a single puzzle. We were de-motivated to continue the puzzle solving.

A day later, when I was asked for an update on the number of puzzles solved, I reported zero. Thereafter, with the help, guidance and motivation from my lecturer at KG College of Arts and Science, we started solving the puzzles. We solved almost all the questions and submitted the answer script as well. With perfect guidance and motivation, it was quite easy for us to solve the problem.

There was a total of eight puzzles and each one of the puzzles was equally challenging to solve though there was a hint to find the answers. It was also very confusing to pick the answers as my sister and I had different perspectives for all the questions.

The major benefit I acquired from this puzzle-solving was how each of them approached the same problem with different perspectives. Prior to the contest, we had a limited outlook, but this has made us think broadly and out of the box. It was surprising to witness the ideas and approaches presented by my professor and sister. It was our privilege that we had a very supportive professor, guiding us in each possible way.

Overall, I had an amazing experience of learning many things from the team and puzzles as well. I can’t wait to put an optimistic effort into the next year’s CS50 Puzzle Day.

There is nothing more satisfying than cracking a puzzle after spending hours considering the combination of letters and numbers in a logical run, in order to get the fun solution and suddenly having a spur of the moment. This puzzle is one of our greatest solved puzzles and is near to my heart.