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You give “Popsicle sticks” as an example of a secret ingredient. Would we actually have to physically use Popsicle sticks in our puzzle, or could we use the written phrase “Popsicle Sticks”, a picture of a frozen treat with the handle visible, or some other creative interpretation of the ingredient?

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You give “Popsicle sticks” as an example of a secret ingredient. Would we actually have to physically use Popsicle sticks in our puzzle, or could we use the written phrase “Popsicle Sticks”, a picture of a frozen treat with the handle visible, or some other creative interpretation of the ingredient?

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Interpretation of the secret ingredients is left to the teams. The Iron Puzzler equipment page states that puzzles may employ “[s]imple mono-alphabetic cryptograms.” I’d like to know if the organizers have an objective definition of “simple.” By simple we specifically mean one to one ciphers- no vignere or any other polyalphabetic ciphers. The type you would find in the Sunday paper, though you can use symbols other than alphabetic ones if you so desire. A follow-up question: are puzzles utilizing multiple encryption methods allowed? For example, a monosymbolic substitution cipher which produces a trinary sequence which can then be interpreted as Morse code. Sure. You can make any sort of puzzle you like. But just be aware that if you make it too difficult, then teams will probably not put in the time to solve it, figuring their time is better spent solving the easier puzzles, and you won’t get any points for cresting. It all depends on who you think your competition will be, and how y

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