7
$\begingroup$

I need help extracting answers for puzzles #6 and #8 from the 2022 MIT Aquarium Hunt.

Images included here. I have the basic answers but am lost on how to combine them to get final answers.

For #6 I think the basic answers might be: lobster, jungles, lagoons, bathtub, postits, dropbox, limeade, and blossom. I presume a one-word puzzle answer must be extracted from these and something related to the “test pattern.” Notably, all the basic answers are seven letters long. But I don’t have any ideas. I don’t see any colors in the basic answers, etc.

Puzzle #6

For #8, I have basic answers: June, Philadelphia, Ronald Reagan, Taylor Swift, and dice. I presume they need to be used somehow in the grid at the bottom to extract a one-word puzzle answer. But I haven’t had any promising ideas.

Puzzle #8

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
1
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Hi, and welcome to Puzzling :) Could you include the relevant puzzles here within the post please? Either as images or text is fine, whatever is possible. We require puzzles to be self-contained here, rather than requiring readers to go hunting about elsewhere on the Web for the content being referenced. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented May 23 at 14:52

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
10
$\begingroup$

The solution to #6 is:

EGGBOXES

You have already found the correct answers to the eight questions in your comment below the question:

LOBSTER, JUNGLES, LAGOONS, BATHTUB, POSTITS, DROPBOX, LIMEADE and BLOSSOM.

But you'll find it helps if you overlay these with the test pattern colours:

Answers with letters coloured as per the test pattern

And now consider which of these colours each item usually is (or is closest to)...

A lobster is red.
Jungles are green (with foliage).
The water in lagoons is (approximately) turquoise.
A metallic bathtub is silver.
Post-its are (originally) yellow.
The Dropbox logo is blue.
Limeade is green.
Blossom is pink.

Highlight the letter in each word that shares its background colour with the colour of the object, and you spell the word EGGBOXES reading downwards!

Meanwhile, the solution to #8 is:

POUND

Again, you have already found the correct answers to the five questions in your comment below the question:

JUNE, PHILADELPHIA, RONALD REAGAN, TAYLOR SWIFT, and DICE.

What you are missing at this point is a way to order them in the grid beneath. And to do this you need to exploit the overall theme, and use some elementary knowledge of...

...the scoring system in tennis. Specifically, you need to know that before a point is scored in tennis a player is said to be on 'love' (the tennis term for 'zero' or 'nil'). Then the first point is 'fifteen', the second 'thirty', the fourth 'forty, and then if a player wins the next point (and their opponent is on 30 or lower) then they win the game.

In other words, we have a natural ordered sequence in tennis, of love, fifteen, thirty, forty, game... and these exact words are hidden in the puzzle text, one per question!

...the "city of brotherly love". (PHILADELPHIA)
...the singer of "Fifteen", "22", "Shake It Off"... (TAYLOR SWIFT)
...the second month with thirty days... (JUNE)
...US president number forty... (RONALD REAGAN)
...I should play a game of Monopoly... (DICE)

Place the answers into the grid in this order...

Answers placed in grid for question 8

...and the spaces featuring tennis racket images spell out the hidden word POUND, which is likely the answer you're looking for!

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you very much - nice and clear! $\endgroup$
    – MPuzzler
    Commented May 23 at 23:35
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @MPuzzler Happy to help :) If this answer has solved your problem you can mark it as the solution by ticking the green checkmark by the side of it. Good luck with the meta! $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented May 24 at 6:36

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.