alumni

Stanford Engineering Puzzle

December 2005

Stanford Engineering Puzzle - Happy Holidays!

This month's puzzle is entirely new and based on the theme of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Using the technology, anyone (or thing) with a GPS receiver can determine position within about a meter by precisely measuring the time it takes to receive signals from satellites whose positions are known very exactly. Because the signals move at a known speed (the speed of light), knowing their travel time means knowing their travel distance. When a receiver knows how far it is from four satellites, it knows where it is on earth. Only one location on earth, for example, could simultaneously be W miles from one satellite, X miles from another, Y miles from a third and Z miles from a fourth.

Aeronautics and astronautics Professor Emeritus Bradford Parkinson led the development of GPS in the 1970s and now he, AA Professor Per Enge and other faculty are working on enhancing positioning technologies in the newly formed Stanford Center for Position, Navigation, and Time.

Directions for Puzzle:

In this GPS-inspired puzzle, your task is to use two distance-measuring beacons (sort of like GPS satellites) to infer the locations of bicycles lost on campus. Upon successful completion, a "secret word" will be revealed. For fun we will post (below) the names of ten alumni who successfully complete the puzzle and e-mail the secret word in the subject line to staff member David Orenstein. Rather than posting the first 10 to respond, we'll post number 1, 11, 21, 31, 41, etc. up to 91. This way there are more chances to be listed throughout the day the E-news goes out.

You must have Flash installed to run this puzzle, which was designed by Scott Kim of Shufflebrain and programmed by Larry Doyle of Cyberiandesign.

The winners circle

  • 1) Robert Ellgas (BS 1974 CEE)
  • 11) Jeffrey Dahmus (BS 1997 ME)
  • 21) Philip Varghese (PHD 1983 ME)
  • 31) Yaneeka Huq (BS 2001 CS)
  • 41) Chirag Pamjikar (MS 2003 ENG)
  • 51) George Downs (BS 1962 MSE)
  • 61) Mike Hill (MS 1976 EE)
  • 71) David Chan (BS 2002 CS, MS&E)
  • 81) Kimen Field (BS 2004 MS&E)
  • 91) Laura Grondalski-Mathiowetz (MS 1987 ME)

Try your hand at our other puzzles in the puzzle archive.