Escape from the Castle
Skippy and Anna are locked in a room at the top of a large castle. There are five other locked rooms to go through to get out.
The key to that room, and all the other rooms, is a number. The numbers are locked away in a problem. The number is the key to that room.
Can you help them to get out?
You must have the number to be able to do the next problem and you must have all the keys to finish by answering the last question.
The first room:
There is a pile of dice.
Three of them are put in a row. The numbers on the top of these three add to 8.
What do the hidden numbers on the bottom add to?
This number is the first key.
The first key/the number is 13, this is because any die, the number on the opposite side will always equal seven if the two numbers are added. I found that out by making a list (and hopefully you will see a pattern):
3 18
4 17
5 16
6 15
7 14
8 13
9 12
10 11
(The Left lane is what the top numbers add up to, the right lane are the numbers on the opposite side and what they add up to.
The second room:
Skippy and Anna have the first key number (13). They have gone through the first locked door.
There are ten cards numbered from 0 to 9. Five of these are face down in a row on the table.
The numbers on the first two cards add to the first key number.
The numbers on the second and third cards add to 9,
the numbers on the third and fourth cards add to 11,
and the numbers on the fourth and fifth cards add to 16.
What number is on the last card? This number is the second key.
The number on the last card is 9. This is because 8, 5,4,7,9 are the only numbers that work. The evidence is that 8, 5,4,7,9 is equal to 33. If we add the numbers that are used twice onto 33 (7, 4, 5) we get 49 which is what all of the numbers on the cards when added to form bigger numbers and then added altogether equals.
The third room:
Skippy and Anna have the second key number (9). They have gone through the second locked door. Here there is a diagram.
There are two overlapping circles inside a rectangle. The rectangle is the second key number of centimetres long and 5 centimetres high.
How far apart are the centres of the two circles?
The circle has a height so the diameter will be 5cm. This means the radius will be 2.5. The rectangle in which the overlapping circles are enclosed in are 9cm in width the height is 5cm and if 5cm + 5cm was the width of the circle there would be no overlapping as the circles will fit perfectly. This means the middle section must be 1cm in order for the circles to fit. Because the centre of the circle is halfway radius multiplied by 2 minus 1cm (for the overlapped area) is the equation needed to answer this question. Therefore the answer is 4cm (4 as a key number).
Square this answer (16) and subtract one (15). This will give you the third key number.
The fourth room:
Skippy and Anna have the third key number (15). They have gone through the third locked door.
On the floor there is a strange diagram and the numbers from 1 to 8 on eight cards. The diagram is a square with eight boxes arranged round it.
Skippy and Anna have to arrange the numbers in the boxes so that each side of the square adds to the third key number.
This question is easy if you use the tactic I used in room two. All the numbers added together equal 36. All the sides are 15 so 4 sides of 15 equal 60. This means the numbers in the corners which are going to be used twice have to equal 24. This really helps as it rules out a lot of answers, I made a bold guess that 1 and 2 cannot be in a corner and because the guess was correct the answer just came to me fairly quickly. Afterwards I realised that I worked out the total of numbers that were going to be used twice (the corners) and I realised that I had already answered the question long ago…..oops (not really the question but the key was what I worked out long ago). This tactic/strategy is a very useful one and I use it for most problems similar to the problems of Rooms 2 and 4.
To find the fourth key number, add the numbers on all the corner boxes (24) and then subtract 10 (which will give me the number 14).
The fifth room:
Skippy and Anna have the fourth key number. They have gone through the fourth locked door.
On the table there are some jam tarts.
There are also two special trays used to cook them in. These hold the key number of tarts each.
There are enough tarts to fill one tray but not enough to fill the other one as well.
If the tarts are counted in fours there are three left over.
If they are counted in threes there is one left over.
How many tarts are there altogether? This number is the fifth and last key.
There are 19 tarts altogether. This is because 4 multiplied by 4 equals 16 which will leave 3 left over. To count in fours 16 is the highest you can go and for the threes, the number is 3 multiplied by 5 which equals 30. It will leave 1 over and it is the highest you can go when counting by threes. This means that the tray has to hold above the number of 10 tarts to meet the conditions. The numbers also meet the conditions.
The last question:
However, before they can finally leave the castle you must answer a last question.
What is Skippy's real name?
Using the code 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C, ... 26 = Z translate all the key numbers into letters.
These letters will give you an anagram of Skippy's real name. When you have worked this out you have finally finished!
13, 9, 15, 14, 19 M, I, O, N, S
SKIPPY ‘S REAL NAME IS…….
Simon
(The attached file contains pictures that relate to the problems)