Saturday, July 28, 2012

GeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Contiguous Consonants

breastroke, matchstick, corkscrew, postscriptGeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Contiguous Consonants:
Q: [GeekDad had] a lot of time to work out several phrases that incorporated words with multiple adjacent non-vowels or "contiguous consonants." For purposes of this puzzle, please consider the letter "y" strictly as a consonant. In parentheses, after each phrase is the number of words, and each word's count of contiguous consonants.
  • Ice-free, super tall buildings in Scranton (3w/6c)
  • Encoding long words in a fixed orbit (3w/6c)
  • Crazy fish-studier’s two wheeled transport (3w/5c)
  • Melodic equivalents to the "Queen of Diamonds" (Condon)(3w/6c)
  • Sufficiently valuable magic during the America’s Cup (3w/5c)
  • Where playing Beethoven on your iPhone was invented (3w/5c)
  • Artificial disk-flip game (2w/5c)
  • Rotational energy "battery," 10-10 meters across (2w/5c)
For those that have struggled with the math problems, this might be more up your alley. The hardest one, in my opinion, is the 4th one; I'm not completely happy with my answer. Which ones do you find tricky? Remember don't give anything away since this is a contest with a prize. Feel free to read the full puzzle details on the GeekDad site and submit your answers by Friday for a chance at the $50 prize.

Edit: The deadline has passed and I've posted our answers in the comments. I'm still waiting to see the intended answers, especially for #4.
Posted by Blaine at 1:05 PM
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4 comments:

  1. PaulWed Jul 25, 01:08:00 PM PDT

    I got #7; that must be the easiest one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. PaulSat Jul 28, 12:23:00 PM PDT

    I think the deadline has now passed, and it's safe to say that I think #7 is TIDDLY-WINKS.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BlaineSat Jul 28, 01:03:00 PM PDT

    Here are the answers we came up with:

    Ice-free, super tall buildings in Scranton (3w/6c)
    noncrystallized Pennsylvanian skyscrapers

    Encoding long words in a fixed orbit (3w/6c)
    geosynchronous polysyllabic encryption

    Crazy fish-studier’s two wheeled transport (3w/5c)
    psychotic ichthyologist's motorcycle

    Melodic equivalents to the “Queen of Diamonds” (Condon)(3w/6c)
    rhythmic posthypnotic catchphrase

    Sufficiently valuable magic during the America’s Cup (3w/5c)
    worthwhile yachtsmen witchcraft

    Where playing Beethoven on your iPhone was invented (3w/5c)
    touchscreen symphony birthplace

    Artificial disk-flip game (2w/5c)
    synthetic tiddlywinks

    Rotational energy “battery,” 10^-10 meters across (2w/5c)
    ångström flywheel

    ReplyDelete
  4. PaulSat Jul 28, 02:02:00 PM PDT

    Clearly, I didn't get it at all.

    ReplyDelete

For NPR puzzle posts, don't post the answer or any hints that could lead to the answer before the deadline (usually Thursday at 3pm ET). If you know the answer, submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't assist with solving. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the deadline. Thank you.

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