SOLUTIONS ~ LAMP WITH FOR KEYS

[lampwithfourkeys]

LAMP WITH FOUR KEYS ~ SOLUTIONS



First there was the easy Starter Puzzle on May 14th. Everyone had to solve it first, because it had something everyone needed to solve the lamp. For the first lamp owner to turn in the Starter Puzzle solution, there was a prize -- a vintage brass lamp key on a macrame necklace. I posted a photo of the necklace a few weeks before I posted the Starter Puzzle. Congratulations to Brian Poeppelman, the winner of the lamp key necklace!



I made this puzzle really easy so that it could be solved within a couple hours. Repeating on the barber poles are the bolded letters of the title -

L A M P W I T H F O U R K E Y S

- and in between them, there are other words. In most of those words, the letters are very light, but 16 of those letters are bolded and italicized. Notice that each of those 16 letters can be lined up directly underneath (diagonally) a letter of the title -

L A M P W I T H F O U R K E Y S

- so all you have to do is to read the 16 letters in the same order as its corresponding title letter So you get a 16-letter phrase:



W A Y T O L I N E U P C O R D S



That's the Starter Puzzle solution, WAY TO LINE UP CORDS.



All those words -- "We are twisted...tangled....line us up..." etc. are supposed to refer to one really obvious thing -- all the loose cords hanging from the bottom of the lam, which contain the puzzle for the First Key, and also to some other things that are not so obvious about the puzzle for the First Key.



As I said earlier, there was something very important about the Starter Puzzle solution. I didn't say what that was, but one of the clues was that the prize for the Starter Puzzle was a key. The phrase -- WAY TO LINE UP CORDS -- is a 16-letter key that has to be plugged into the first puzzle in the lamp, in order to find the First Key.



There are other clues that could be seen in the photo of the necklace. The order of the bead colors, starting from the Starter Puzzle key -- clear, gold, green, and blue -- is the order of the bead colors I used for the keys. The First Key was the clear beads, Key 2 gold beads, Key 3 green beads, Key 4 blue beads. The Starter Puzzle key is first at the center. Between the Starter Puzzle key and the clear beads there is a knot and twisted cord...which is a clue about the First Key, but I'll explain that when I show the solution for the First Key!

[lampwithfourkeys]

FIRST KEY solution:

UNLOCK THE DAY


The hunt started on May 14 2019. On August 1st I received the first correct submission for the First Key from the team of Brian Poeppelman and Beth Hovanec.  (Beth is Genetic Blend in the forum.)   They both worked very hard on this!  Brian made some great graphics showing how they found the key. Thanks to Brian for letting me share these graphics here! They make it a lot easier to explain the solution.



First of all, you had to figure out that the First Key is in the 24 clear beads in the the bottom cords, and only in that one particular place. I tried to post clues that would point there.



When I was making the Lamp, I originally planned to use ALL the loose bottom cords in the puzzle for the First Key. I started doing that, and then I quickly realized that it would be impossible for anyone to solve, because the cords would never stay straight in the same place. They were always shifting and twisting around. It was a big source of frustration for me. I wasted a lot of time trying to make it work. That is one of the reasons for all those words in the Starter Puzzle -- "we are twisted", "we are confused", "get us in line", "very uncoordinated". Those loose cords gave me a lot of trouble, and I think I was still mad at them when I made the Starter Puzzle!



So then I finally figured out that I would only have to use 24 of the loose cords, and mark each of those with a small clear bead. I wanted to use a Polybius cipher, because I remembered it fondly from "A Treasure's Trove". You can read about the Polybius cipher here -- www.dcode.fr/polybius-cipher

The Polybius uses five coordinates -- "coords" for short -- which sounds like "cords". So 24 of the loose "cords" became the "coords".



For the 5 coords I used the 4 different lengths of those cords (the 24 cords marked with the small clear beads)....but the knot on the end (or lack of a knot on the end) was also a coordinate. There were several that had no knots. Here's the way the coords are lined up:



1. no knot (and same length as #2)

2. shortest length

3. next shortest length

4. longer length

5. longest length



You could also do it as 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. It would have worked the same either way.



The cords with the 24 clear beads are arranged in two sets of 12. I hinted in one of my posts that the handles marked the starting places. The first set starts at under the first end of the handle and spirals clockwise down around. The second set starts under the other end of the handle and goes in the same direction. (I marked the first end of the handle with raised knots on that side of the Lamp, and those raised knots are meant to be the starting place for all the puzzles in the Lamp.) So the two spiraling lines of clear beads make the same kind of shape as the barber poles in the Starter Puzzle. It's kind of hard to see this at first because the two sets' lines cross each other in the middle! The Starter Puzzle was also meant to show how the two sets clear beads are supposed to be read. in pairs. The 1st pair is the 1st bead in each set, the 2nd pair is the 2nd bead in each set, and so on. The last picture here shows how Brian marked the path of the clear beads, as shown in one of the clues I posted.



So there are 12 pairs. These are the coords you get. (The ones with no knot are marked with an asterisk.)



(1) 4/5

(2) 5/4

(3) 5/2

(4) 5/1*

(5) 2/5

(6) 4/4

(7) 4/1*

(8) 4/3

(9) 5/5

(10) 1*/3

(11) 2/1*

(12) 3/1*



But then there is the twist in the 5X5 grid that I used for the Polybius. I used a KEYED Polybius.grid. As it says in the Polybius article www.dcode.fr/polybius-cipher "A password [or key] can be used to generate a deranged alphabet that fills the grid....The order of the letters in the grid can be modified using a key to generate a deranged alphabet." That is what I did. All the way around the 16 outer cells of the Polybius square, I put a 16-letter key.



The key is the Starter Puzzle solution --. WAYTOLINEUPCORDS



Notice there are two letter O's. I wanted to have a 16-letter key with one repeating letter. Why is that?



Because I was using a 24-letter alphabet!! In all the puzzles everywhere in the Lamp, even in the Final Puzzle, I used a 24-letter alphabet, with no J or Q. I hinted this in so many clues...."Two are missing"....and I never used the letters J or Q in any of my posts. (That is,except at the very end in one of my Final Puzzle hints, when I slipped and used the word "unique". This caused a lot of confusion for those trying to solve the Final Puzzle, unfortunately! And there is a letter J in "Chicken Jungle", but I had that name before this hunt.)



These first two pics are from from Brian Poeppelman. They show how the 5X5 grid is laid out.  The third picture is one of the clues I posted. Brian marked it to show how the 24 clear beads are are arranged, similar to the letters in this clue.



Also, there is another great graphic from Bill Gardner ("wgardner" here in the forum) who sent in the second correct submission for the First Key.  It shows how everything is tied together.  I will put that in another post, since I can only post 3 files at a time.

So, after you put all of this together, you will find the First Key.

UNLOCK THE DAY



I think it's pretty obvious where this Key is going to be used, if you have a Lamp. In the part just above the clear beads, where the gold beads are arranged in circles of 12 beads each, like a clock! I will post the solution to Key 2 next.


Believe it or not, when I was making the lamp, I thought someone would solve this right away! It seems easier when you're making the puzzles. Now on hindsight I realize this was probably the hardest to solve of all the four Keys. Next time I will try to have an easier beginning!

[lampwithfourkeys]

Also, here's a great graphic by Bill Gardner (wgardner here in the forum) who was the second one to submit a correct answer for the First Key.  It's a flow chart that shows how everything goes together to solve the First Key.  I posted this as a clue later in the game.

[lampwithfourkeys]

KEY 2 ~ SOLUTION



WIND ROSE



On August 10th, Bill Gardner was the first one to send in a correct answer for Key 2.  Congratulations to Bill for winning the $100 prize for Key 2!



The graphic below shows the process (For this, I used one of Brian Poeppelman's graphics for the background, and filled it in with in my own letters. Thanks again for the graphic, Brian!)



There are two rows of "clocks" -- an upper row and a lower row. There are five "clocks" in each row. All the clocks have 12 places in them, with either a knot or a gold bead. (Since you have the message in the First Key about a clock, you will know this is supposed to be a clock.) One "clock" in each row is blank , with nothing but knots, and the others each have a gold bead marking one of the 12 spots in the clock. All the marked "clocks" have a large clear disc bead in the center. The large clear bead is only there to mark the place, to make the clock design around it easier to see. (At first I tried the design without the clear disc beads, and the design was much harder to make out without the big flat beads marking the place....the knots in the clocks blended too much into the surrounding knots. With the big disc beads marking the place,for each one, the separate clocks could be seen much better.)



The 12 spots in each clock mark the hours. A clock has two faces, the a.m. face and the p.m. face. (That's why one of the Key 2 clues had the character Two-Face from the Batman movie.) The upper row is the a.m. and the lower row is the p.m. The 12 letters of the First Key -- UNLOCK THE DAY -- go all around the 12 spaces of the a.m. face, starting at 1 o'clock a.m. and ending at 12 noon. All the clock faces in the upper row (except for the one blank one) have these letters around them.



The remaining letters of the alphabet go around the p.m. face in the lower row, in alphabetical order. Remember, it was established in the First Key puzzle that this is a 24-letter alphabet with no J or Q. Starting at 1 o'clock p.m. --

B F G I M P R S V W X Z -- with the letter Z at 12 midnight. These go around all the p.m clock faces except for the blank one.



Then you take the letters of the 8 gold beads in the 8 clocks, skipping the blanks. But where do you start, and in what order do read them? You start at the same place where you started with the First Key puzzle, which is the spot marked by the left handle. You read the beads from left to right, starting with the clock at the left handle. (This is the same starting spot for all the puzzles in the Lamp, and it's marked on the lamp with raised knots down the center of the cylinder part.) The first bead, just to the right of the to the left handle, has the letter "W". The next one is "I". The next one to the right of that is the "N", then the "D". Then R-O-S-E.



WIND ROSE. This is Key 2.



If you have a Lamp, you will probably know where this Key will be used next! Just above the clocks, on the base of the cylinder part, of the lamp, there is a circular design with 8 divisions around the center, 16 smaller divisions around that, and a lot of green beads. It looks like a ship's wheel or a compass -- or a wind rose, the old-fashioned name.



I'll tell about that when I post the Key 3 solution!

[lampwithfourkeys]

KEY 3 Solution ~



LEAD THE WAY



The prize for Key 3 was won on August 27th by the hard-working team of Brian Poeppelman and Beth Hovanec!  (Beth is Genetic Blend here on the forum.)



The pictures explain this best! The design resembles a compass or a nautical wind rose. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass_rose

It has 8 inner arms representing the 8 main directions -- N NE E SE S SW W NW. Then around the outside are 16 smaller spots, like you would see on a compass rose or wind rose.



The first thing you have to do is to find North, like on any compass. Where is North? If you look at the lamp, you will see that one of the 8 arms is lined up with one of those raised knot markers that I mentioned before. That marks north.



Key 2 was WIND ROSE. This is an 8-letter word. So the 8 letters fit onto the 8 main compass directions .



But there is a twist. There is something special about the letters in the word WIND ROSE. It contains the four cardinal directions, N S E W. (North, South, East, West. So the first thing to do is to put the letters N S E W on the four cardinal directions, as the first picture here shows.



Then you fill in the rest of the letters of the key, as the next picture shows, filling in around N S E W letters. The letters "I" and "D" fall in line between "W" and "N" and the "R" and "O" fall around the S and E.



That part was a big hurdle for the solvers! But the rest is easy. The remaining letters of the alphabet go on the 16 spaces around the outside, starting with North. The third picture shows this.



So then you look to see where the green beads are. Those are the letters to use. But what order to you read them? And what do you do when some of the directions, like E, have two beads on them?



The last photo shows how you find the order. The tiny green beads inside the inner coil show the order. The tiny bead at the very beginning in the middle of the coil lines up with the letter "L". Then you just follow the coil outwards, and read the beads in the order shown by the tiny green beads in the coil. The next bead in the coil lines up with "E".



So then you get -- LEAD THE WAY. That is Key 3.



(Thanks to Brian Poeppelman for the photo of the lamp. I used Microcoft Paint to add the letters and numbers to his photo.)

[lampwithfourkeys]

Here are the other two pictures showing the last two steps of the solution for Key 3!







So you get ~  LEAD THE WAY 

[lampwithfourkeys]

Key 4 Solution ~



GPS NUMBERS



On September 15th I announced a winner of the $100 prize for the first to solve Key 4. Congratulations to Bill Gardner for tackling Key 4 and figuring it out!



The solution for this Key is really very simple, once you know what to do. This was the part of the lamp that I enjoyed making the most. This alternating double-square knot design is one of the easiest patterns to do in macrame, so I really enjoyed making row upon row upon row of these little alternating squares.



There are 6 rows of these little squares. If you count, there are 24 spots in each of the 6 rows. Most of the spots are filled by a square, but there are 10 blank spaces where instead of a square there is a blank space -- an X shape, made of crossed cords.



So here is what you do. You fill the 24 spots in each row with the 24-letter alphabet (the same 24-letter alphabet used in all the puzzles so far, without the letters J and Q). But you have to do this using the third Key -- LEAD THE WAY. The 10 letters of this key go into the 10 blanks.



You start from the same starting place all the puzzles have used so far -- those raised knots directly under the left handle. Just as you did for other puzzles, you go from left to right. So you put the first letter of the key "L" into the first blank you find starting from the left handle. The letter "E" goes into the next blank, "A" the next blank "D" next and so on. Some of the rows have more than one blank. For instance, the third row from the bottom, has three blanks all in that row.. The key letter "A goes into the first blank in that row, then the key letter "D" goes into the blank three spaces down. Then 4 spaces after that, there's the key letter "H".



Once you have the 10 blank spaces filled with the key, then you simply fill in all the letters of the alphabet in order, on each row. Here is how they line up. I capitalize here each key letter on a blank space. (These typed letters are not equally spaced, so the key letters won't line up evenly left to right, but in the lamp they do.)



Top row 1 --

t u v w x y z a b c d E f g h i k l m n o p r s

Row 2 --

d E f g h i k l m n o p r s t u v w x Y z a b c

Row 3--

*L* m n o p r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i k



Row 4--

y z A b c D e f g H i k l m n o p r s t u v w x



Row 5--

g h i k l m n o p r s t u v W x y z A b c d e f



Row 6--

m n o p r s T u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i k l



Then all you have to do is see where the blue beads are, and read the letters from each bead, going left to right. Here I capitalize the letters marked by the blue beads.





Top row 1--

t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p R S



Row 2 --

d e f g h i k l m N o p r s t u v w x y z a b c



Row 3--

l m n o P r S t u v w z y z a B c d e f g h i k



Row 4--

y z a b c d e f g h i k l M n o p r s t u v w x



Row 5--

G h i k l m n o p r s t U v w x y z a b c d e f



Row 6--

m n o p r s t u v w x y z a b c d E f g h i k l



Reading from left to right, you get --



GPS NUMBERS

This is Key 4.

[jonwh25]

These are great. Can you maybe explain the answers to all the clues too? I think that is where I was getting tripped up.

[lampwithfourkeys]

Sorry, I've been very busy with some responsibilities the last few days, and that's why I haven't answered. I will post the solution to the Final Puzzle ASAP, and also the answers to the clues. I had a good time making those clues!

[lampwithfourkeys]

Solution for the FINAL PUZZLE
Congratulations again to BRIAN POEPPELMAN and BETH HOVANEC for submitting the solution, and winning the $1000 Grand Prize!

(I wanted to explain this in full detail, and I've just been very busy.  I apologize for the delay!)  

To solve the Final Puzzle, you had to find the name of the building that the Four Keys unlock. This is the name of the building:



SHREE GOKARNANATHA KSHETHRA KUDROLI



You arrive at this destination by finding its GPS numbers in degrees, minutes and seconds format:

12°52'34.01"N

74°49'53.29"E



How do you get these numbers? It is simple if you know what to look for.  (At least, I thought it was simple.  I even thought that I might have someone solve it within a month or so after I mailed out the lamps!  But according to the people who solved it, it was far from simple!) 



There are loops at the top of the lamp. They are arranged in four groups, with four lines of loops in each group. Two of the groups have the loops in four horizontal lines, and the other two groups have the loops in four vertical lines, as shown in the first photo here. The loops decrease in size from top to bottom, or from right to left.




So, the Four Keys fit into the four lines of loops in each of the groups.



GPS NUMBERS.......(BLUE beads, biggest loops)

LEAD THE WAY........(GREEN beads, next biggest loops)

WIND ROSE.............(GOLD beads, small loops)

UNLOCK THE DAY...(CLEAR beads, tiny loops)



The Four Keys repeat in each of the four groups of loops at the top of the lamp.



Wherever the bead falls on a letter in each of these key phrases, you are supposed to take that letter and find its alphanumeric number. The clues and hints that I posted for the Final Solution point to an alphanumeric solution. For instance, in the first group of horizontal loops, the blue bead falls on the letter U in "GPS NUMBERS". So you have to find the corresponding alphanumeric number for the letter "U".



(How do you know that this group of horizontal loops is the first group? The same raised bumps, which I mentioned in the previous solutions, mark the starting point for all the puzzles in the lamp. So when you get to the Final Puzzle, you will already have the starting point., as defined by those raised bumps.)



This graphic shows the arrangement of the beads in each group. (Thanks to Brian Poeppelman for the graphic!)





In the regular 26-letter alphabet the letter "U" is the 21st letter. But since we have established in all the previous puzzles that this is a 24-letter alphabet, the letter "U" is the 19th letter.



So you have all these letters, and the corresponding alphanumeric numbers. But what do you do with them? Since Key 4 says "GPS NUMBERS" you know that's what they are supposed to be.



Here is the tricky part: To get GPS numbers from these, you have to convert them to SINGLE DIGITS. You find their DIGITAL ROOT, or DIGITAL SUM.



www.dcode.fr/recursive-reduction



So the digital sum for the number 19 for the letter "U" is number 1 + number 9 = 10. 1+0 = 1. So it becomes single digit 1.



This graphic here (again courtesy Brian Poeppelman) shows how this works out with the 24-letter alphabet. For instance the letter N becomes single digit 4.





In the first two group of horizontal lines of loops, the loops point up. NORTH. In the second two groups of vertical lines of loops, the loops point to right right. EAST.



In the first group, there is one clear bead missing. Why is nothing there? This is where there is a number 0 in the GPS numbers.



NORTH

BLUE: U = 1....GREEN: E = 5....GOLD: W = 3....CLEAR = 0

BLUE: R = 2....GREEN: L = 2....GOLD: D = 4.....CLEAR: A = 1



EAST

BLUE: R = 7...GREEN: D = 4....GOLD: O = 5.....CLEAR: L = 2

BLUE: N = 4...GREEN: T = 9....GOLD: W = 3....CLEAR: T = 9



So you get these GPS numbers:

12°52'34.01"N

74°49'53.29"E



You go to Google Maps (or Google Earth) and key in these numbers to finally arrive at your destination.



SHREE GOKARNANATHA KSHETHRA KUDROLI



I thought this would be simple to find, once you realized you had to take the digital sum of the numbers. But Brian and Beth said that they had to go through more than 7,500 Google maps before they found this building. Brian said:



"Simple is a relative term! Sure, the solution is 'simple', but there are 7600 different ways that it is 'simple' too. I opened at least that many Google map links.... and then I stopped counting"



Any comments or suggestions would be welcome!