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        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> Riddles Club 
        
(Message started by: KeyBlader01 on Jun 18^th, 2006, 7:41am)

Title: Riddles Club
Post by KeyBlader01 on Jun 18^th, 2006, 7:41am

Hi,

I decided after surfing as a guest on the website and forums, I really want to start an interesting and worthwhile riddles club at my High School.

However a Major flaw persists: I suck at riddle solving!! :-[

-How can I develop my skills better at solving riddles?
-How can I keep the club active and moving?
-What would be interesting and original ideas for starting out the club? Assignments?
-What kind of riddles should I introduce to a high school level audience?

Thanx and hopefully this club can be created into existence. :-/

Title: Re: Riddles Club
Post by Icarus on Jun 18^th, 2006, 7:23pm

The biggest single factor in solving riddles is experience. I can get a great many "What am I?" riddles very quickly because there is a short list of topics that answer a significant number of these. Because I have seen so many riddles with them, I look for them right off. If any of them seem close, I think about variations to see if they fit: Fire, time, light/dark, shadow, water/river/ocean, sound/silence.

As for what sort of riddles you should give, that would depend on your audience. If your target audience contains a lot of tech-geeks, then I would recommend a heavy diet of mathematical/logical type puzzles. Things like the Missing Dollar puzzle, the 3-hats puzzle, Brown-eyes/Red-eyes, Fork in the Road, 100 prisoners and a light-bulb (looking for any solution in less than 1000 years). Toss in the occasional "What am I?" or other word puzzle for variety. On the other hand, if your audience has a significant number of non-techies, you will want more "What am I?"s and other word puzzles or trick puzzles and few if any hard-core logical ones.

Regardless, one thing you should aim for is a good variety of hardness in your puzzles. Too many easy puzzles and people will quickly lose interest. Too many hard puzzles, and they will decide it isn't worth it. You need to give the newer/less-skilled members sufficient puzzles within their capacity. This allows them to feel they are able to take part and derive a sense of satisfaction from solving them. More capable solvers also like the occasional easy one. But if you have too many easy puzzles, the advanced puzzlers will start looking elsewhere for challenges and drop out of your club.

Some other things to watch out for:
Try not to let a few members dominate the whole thing. This is difficult to do. On this site, though we have thousands of members, the vast majority of posts are from a fairly small group of posters - which gets even smaller if you look only at those currently active. It may be impossible to prevent completely, but you can help by avoiding putting a lot of emphasis on being "first to solve". (I suggest noting "first to solve" - people like recognition - but don't make too big a deal out of it.)

And (I cannot stress this enough) do NOT let anyone get away with demeaning other members. Make it clear to everyone that this is not acceptable. There are always some who cannot restrain themselves, but allowing them to insult others WILL destroy your club. The same thing holds for demeaning non-members, as well. This won't destroy your group, but it will limit its appeal.

Do not just copy puzzles verbatim from anywhere. Look it over and make sure it is well-worded and understandable. Few things are more frustrating than trying to figure out a semi-literate poorly worded puzzle. And worst of all is when the puzzle has been changed so the answer no longer fits. (The GRY puzzle is an excellent example of this. I have seen the puzzle posted here and elsewhere at least 20 or 30 times, and *NO ONE* has ever stated it correctly! Without fail, the wording actually precludes their answer. I found the correct wording only by looking up an article about it on the internet. Avoid the "GRY" puzzle.)

I suggest starting your club with some sort of "Puzzle Challenge" - a group of puzzles of medium to hard (but not too hard) quality, and see who can solve the group. Again, note who solves it first, but let everyone have the chance to solve it on their own, and award everyone who does so.

Unfortunately, I am not able to give you much advice about exactly which puzzles are appropriate for your group. I am lousy at those judgements.