MEOW #3: On the Rebound

A weekly meta crossword on the forum started by member Josh (aka madhatter5). These puzzles are often very creative with solving mechanisms out of the norm and skewing towards the more challenging. Puzzles are posted every Wednesday, and the solution appears the following Tuesday.
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C=64
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#61

Post by C=64 »

Solved! I had the right idea a few days ago after the first hint but failed with the execution. (I also had to Google the answer to make sure it is a thing.)
madhatter5
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#62

Post by madhatter5 »

Solution:

The answer is PADDLE TENNIS


solution.PNG


Now if you excuse me I'm gonna go hide out in the woods for a week.
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Joe Ross
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#63

Post by Joe Ross »

IMH&HO, it would have been fantastic to have this speel out PONG BY ATARIยฎ (give the ยฎ in the last grid square as a freebie) . This would skew favor to us older geezers, of course.

Still, as is, a GREAT meta & kudos to solvers!
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PLATELET ๐—ฑ๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐˜€ ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ.
๐—ง๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐—ถ๐˜€ ENORMOUS ๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฟ ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ:
๐Ÿฐ๐Ÿฌ% ๐—ฝ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐—ฐ,
๐Ÿฏ๐Ÿฌ% ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ต, ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐˜๐—ถ๐—ฐ,
๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฟ ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ & ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐˜‚๐—บ๐—ฎ. ๐—ฃ๐—Ÿ๐—˜๐—”๐—ฆ๐—˜ ๐—ฆ๐—›๐—”๐—ฅ๐—˜!
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KayW
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#64

Post by KayW »

Wow! KAS 4 for me for sure. After that final nudge, I was trying to bounce things around but somehow never hit the right angles. Kind of like my poor billiards skills. I agree with above, a fantastic meta - kudos to constructor and solvers!

As your last spoiler mentioned, the one tweak I think might have helped would be to somehow indicate that we start with the square one P. Those O's were quite a strong distraction. But with that tweak, I would say this puzzle/meta is WSJCC-worthy.

I look forward to more of your metas!
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cbarbee002
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#65

Post by cbarbee002 »

How silly am I - - I actually drew with a highlighter the same route that MadHatter shows in the grid above. . . . . and missed getting the answer. Wow. Now that I see it, I like it. My bad.
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ChrisKochmanski
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#66

Post by ChrisKochmanski »

Talk about lame-brained, I followed many such paths -- probably including the correct one -- but never read only the squares where you bounce.

Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!

Agree: Good meta!
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whimsy
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#67

Post by whimsy »

Given letters I saw in the grid, I did aim for both Paddle Ball and Tennis at various times but couldn't manage to hit them or the correct answer.

My "Let's have some fun with this" solution was to take the wedge made by PING and PONG, hit it with a cue stick to the area of cell #s 38 and 43, where it proceeded to invert itself (see the ING and ONG?) lose its P's, and send several ATE (8) balls radiating out from the collision. So POOL, of course! :D
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Dannyvee
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#68

Post by Dannyvee »

The most helpful nudge I could have gotten would have been to ignore the Os. I couldnโ€™t get away from making something out of them.
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#69

Post by SewYoung »

I could have looked at this for a million years and never gotten it. Kudos to those who did. Madhatter may just be too much for me. I am not giving up, though. I will continue to follow and try his (her?) puzzles.
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oldjudge
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#70

Post by oldjudge »

Why do you bounce at those squares and not others? Unless someone can explain why a solver should have known which squares to bounce off I think that this puzzle was not very well thought out.
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Meg
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#71

Post by Meg »

So, I wondered earlier on the forum (before that cute cat pic) how I would feel upon seeing the answer. Iโ€™m gonna go with nonplussed. The path does seem arbitrary. Sometimes you bounce off the top of the black section. Sometimes you bounce off the side. Perhaps I missed some logic in there....
Last edited by Meg on Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Hector
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#72

Post by Hector »

I think it's not arbitrary: you always reflect off the wall you hit, whether it's the top, bottom, or side of a black square. That the "ball" should be the letter "P", however, does strike me as arbitrary, and had not even occurred to me as a possibility. Also its initial path seems under-motivated, though maybe if I'd thought that the "P" has to travel that would be a path I'd try. From the hints I thought the PING-PONG corner configuration was supposed to be the "ball" and that we were to somehow bounce it around, changing its orientation. I like the idea, but I can't say I enjoyed the time I spent looking for it.
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oldjudge
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#73

Post by oldjudge »

Hector, thatโ€™s not true. If you are going down the middle of the squares you can proceed past the first A to say the O in 39A. In fact, the only thing that stops you is the final S in the LR corner. I tried several types of reflections but I think this was an arbitrary solution.
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Hector
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#74

Post by Hector »

Ah, now I see what you (and Meg) mean. Sorry. I was assuming that the ball takes up much or all of a square, like the red boxes in mad's diagram, so that part of the ball would have to pass through the black square to get past it.
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C=64
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#75

Post by C=64 »

The mechanism makes more sense if you envision the ball as a square sliding diagonally that needs its corners to have an unobstructed path. (Or, if that seems inelegant, imagine that the ball fills the entire square instead of being a point at the center of the square. (Or pretend that we have a beam of light and the edge of every black square is a mirror.)) I have drawn the first three segments in green, blue, and purple to illustrate what I mean. The path is never obstructed by a protruding corner of a black square until you get to a square marked in red.
solution1.png
Edit: I took a loooong time crafting this post and didn't see Hector's reply.
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oldjudge
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#76

Post by oldjudge »

Nice try. Iโ€™ve enjoyed all of Mad Hatters puzzles up to this point. This one, however, was not Mad Hatterโ€™s finest hour. I look forward to seeing what the next one is like.
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Joe Ross
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#77

Post by Joe Ross »

Nailed it, Hector & C=64. It would have looked exactly like that on a Commodore 64. ๐Ÿคญ Granted, it's not a table tennis path and the initial path isn't easily determined, but - once on its way - it bounces true.

Considering it's a puzzle freely offered in a "no promises" space, from the mind of an obvious savant, I'm happy to have attempted it, if only to encourage the creator's skill & experience.
Whole blood, platelets, or plasma: Donate 4 in 2024

PLATELET ๐—ฑ๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐˜€ ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ.
๐—ง๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐—ถ๐˜€ ENORMOUS ๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฟ ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ:
๐Ÿฐ๐Ÿฌ% ๐—ฝ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐—ฐ,
๐Ÿฏ๐Ÿฌ% ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ต, ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐˜๐—ถ๐—ฐ,
๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฟ ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ & ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐˜‚๐—บ๐—ฎ. ๐—ฃ๐—Ÿ๐—˜๐—”๐—ฆ๐—˜ ๐—ฆ๐—›๐—”๐—ฅ๐—˜!
madhatter5
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#78

Post by madhatter5 »

Thank you all for the feedback. I clearly owe you an apology about this puzzle.

It was clear to me from the first day or two after posting that I had made a mistake, since I received no entries and we had many new solvers from the MMM (and the new subforum is more visible now). So this was obviously a very bad week to mess up ...

I see in retrospect why it was unfair to expect solvers to see the path in this particular way, and why the top-left cell being the 'ball' was nebulous at best.

I am aware that I likely wasted many hours of your collective time and so I am really sorry to have had that happen. I will try extra hard to avoid ambiguous solution paths in the MEOW. The good news is that tomorrow's puzzle is the first to have been test-solved so I expect these sorts of failure modes to be caught in time going forwards.

I really appreciate everyone taking the time to try my puzzles, and for everyone's really thoughtful feedback.
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boharr
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#79

Post by boharr »

No need at all to apologize for goodness sake. We all appreciate that you are making these puzzles and look forward to many more, starting tomorrow.
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Meg
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#80

Post by Meg »

Personally, I NEVER consider meta-solving or not solving a waste of time. Itโ€™s all good brain exercise. Pre-COVID I was a teacher. I am all about feedback and encouragement.
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