Breakout challenge

I made my 6th graders a second breakout challenge, after they kept clamoring for one. It was slightly too long for the 45 minutes they had, and did require some collaboration  between groups. I had two groups out of 8 finish, both a few minutes after the 45 minutes. A number of other groups were close behind. The students said afterward that they had fun and that it wasn’t too difficult, but I would either use more time or a couple slightly easier puzzles next time.

Design:

Students given Black Ammo Box, Clue Sheet, and lockpicks

Black Ammo Box with lockout hasp, 3 locks
Lock 1- pickable clear padlock
Lock 2 – directional lock, clue #2, combo is Up – Left – Up – Right
Lock 3 – clue #1 Hex decodes to “How you get wifi + the ultimate answer” combo=WAP42

Inside box – Final Challenge sheet (taped in place to avoid box tampering)
Has website and quiz with clues to key (Key is TURING)

Website – “The clue is below:”
Clue is white text on white background, encrypted with Vigenere, key is given by quiz
Clue: PBFEN YVUCT RJMBV NNZAY IWSOG ZFZZG MCFVG KVBEW YUZSK MYRMB FU
Clue decodes to: Who was called the Father of Information Technology Tell Thom
Answer is Claude Shannon

Challenge skills:
Lockpicking
Google search
Recognize hexadecimal numbers and decode to ASCII
Search hidden text on a website
Decrypt Vigenere cipher
Remember important CS facts
Find an IP address

Clue Sheet

#1.
48 6f 77 20 79 6f 75 20 67 65 74 20 77
69 66 69 20 2b 20 74 68 65 20 75 6c 74
69 6d 61 74 65 20 61 6e 73 77 65 72

#2
Frogger! The Frogger Musical

#3
Directional lock directions:
push hasp in twice to clear BEFORE putting in combination
Combination is four movements

Final Challenge

The final challenge is at https://sites.google.com/cliffvalley.org/finalpuzzle/home

You’ll need a key, though. Use the clues below to find it.

Which of the following is an input device?
Hard Drive E
Monitor S
Speakers K
Microphone T

What part of a computer processes information?
RAM T
WAP E
CPU U
SSD A

What are the first three digits of your computer’s IP address?
255 S
168 W
192 R
120 E

Which type of memory is the fastest?
RAM R
Hard Drive D
Cache I
Flash Drive S

What is measured in GHz?
CPU speed N
Amount of memory C
IP Address D
Hard Drive F

What decimal number is represented in binary as 10011?
19 G
18 B
21 T
35 S