Armchair Treasure Hunt 2015
| Title: |
Great Circles |
| Setter: |
Dave Kee
|
| Themes: |
FitzRoy & the Beagle |
Click on the image to download the full-size PDF file.
The timetable for the hunt was as follows:
In addition to the usual awards points were available for the best Team Biography and a points bounty offered for any critical faults found with hunts in the Archive.
End of Hunt Message from David Kee, 12 January 2016
I would like to put on record my appreciation of the efforts made on my behalf by ATHers across the globe.
This map shows the location of ATHers accessing ATH2015 in 2015 and 2016.
28 teams submitted documents to Dr Frunt and much to my relief 2 teams found the treasure. I am pleased to say that my recovery is complete.
I would also like to acknowledge the debt that I owe to Dr Frunt who has sent a message via the Live ATH Notes tab.
We will be marking your submissions and arranging a prize giving in due course.
One team wanted to compliment us but were too shy to say it and so kindly sent in a video that, as they put it,
"...captures the essence of our hunt". The video will certainly encourage us not to let you down as we plough through 762 pages of documents and 51 spreadsheet tabs.
Other Hunt resources
This hunt made use of several web sites, a phone line and an automated email responder out in the cloud. There are cost and maintenance issues for these
resources over the long term and inevitably they will be lost. Therefore copies have been made that can continue to be accessed.
There was also the disappearing treasure on the home page, reproduced on the left (over time the treasure slowly disappears and is then replenished).
www.ATHcorp.co.uk
A copy of this website can be found
here.
www.ActonHospital.co.uk
A copy of this website can be found
here.
020 3239 1831
Calls to this line heard a recorded message. Over the course of the hunt the speaker was changed but the message was the same. Click to download
a recording,
speaker1 (m4a 0.7mb),
speaker2 (m4a 0.5mb) or
speaker3 (m4a 0.5mb).
@ActonHospital.co.uk email address
Emails sent to this address were automatically responded to by software in the cloud. An almost identical service is offered by @athv02r42ActonHospital.appspotmail.com which
will be supported in the long term alongside support for www.PablosATH.com. There are some limitations to this service relative to the one available during the hunt, namely:
- email addresses need to be formatted as @athv02r42ActonHospital.appspotmail.com instead of @ActonHospital.co.uk;
- the service only supports a few emails/day, not the 20,100 supported during the hunt. We plan to make this 100/day but it may be necessary on occasion to limit this to 10/day.
Live ATH Notes
The contents of the Live ATH Notes page at the end of ATH 2015.
| Date |
Note |
| 2016-01-12 12:00 UTC |
Message from Dr Frunt:
I am pleased to say the David has made a complete recovery. This is due in no small part to the contributions of ATHers everywhere.
It has been a pleasure to work with a group of such dedicated obsessives. David has offered me a place on his team for next year's hunt, you wouldn't get this from any other guy.
He says you know the rules and so do I, a full commitment's what I'm thinking of. However, my work here is done and I am gonna say goodbye.
The ATH2015 setters will take it from here.
|
| 2016-01-08 19:10 UTC |
Messages from Dr Frunt:
1. I have been sifting through the ashes of the hunt and I have come across a fragment of Page 10 that looks more up to date than the version I found some weeks ago.
You can download it here.
I pass it on now in case it is useful. Note that the download published at 19:10 was faulty, it was replaced at 22:00, a download prior to 22:00 should be discarded.
2. David's recovery plan is fast approaching a major deadline, only the weekend and a day and a half to go. See note 8 below for how YOU can still help David.
|
| 2016-01-03 22:00 UTC |
Message from Dr Frunt:
Happy New Year to all teams.
There is just over a week to go before I need your understanding of this year's hunt to assist me with David's recovery.
I am happy to accept your understanding in any reasonable form (e.g. pdf, word, excel, etc.), but please make it easy for me to navigate your text
(a dump of an unstructured web site is no use to me). I do not want to miss something of value to David's recovery plan.
If this is your first hunt remember to mark your understanding as virgin. I am told that prizes have been awarded in recent years in a variety of categories;
I suggest you look at recent history and tailor your submission accordingly.
Put a reminder in your diary now to send your understanding to [email protected] by noon 12th January 2016.
|
| 2016-12-30 23:15 UTC |
Message from Dr Frunt:
Another Delphic utterance from David, "The snake is a mistake for the 201st prime, the next King George is more suitable".
|
| 2016-12-27 00:05 UTC |
Messages from Dr Frunt:
1. I would like to apologise to the Past Setters for a typo in my most recent letter.
I have a slight stutter and my secretary faithfully types what I dictate.
So please ignore any spurious repeated words in my letter, eg "to to" should be just "to".
At Acton Hospital we aim to maintain the highest standards and the management would
like to add that I am being sent for textual rehabilitation in the second half of January.
2.
I have had a few enquiries about the reliability of David's recent utterances.
David's recovery is at an advanced stage and I would hope that his grasp of reality
is similarly on the mend.
3.
I am a little concerned about the depressing effect of Christmas on ATHers
teams' morale as measured on the Frunt Index.
So can I ask you to cast off those Christmas blues and get hunting, David still needs YOU!
|
| 2016-12-24 18:05 UTC |
Message from Dr Frunt:
I thought you would like to know that the enthusiasm shown by ATHers has roused David from
his non-responsive state.
However, his utterances are increasingly Delphic, eg "glzt8a is the new s4bti3".
|
| 2016-12-23 01:55 UTC |
Messages from Dr Frunt:
1. I would like to thank the ATHers for their support for my patient and wish you all a Happy Christmas and a successful New Year.
2. David briefly came out of his non-responsive state today to tell me that 65 is a question and not a statement, whatever that means.
|
| 2016-12-19 00:45 UTC |
The bugged journey file made by Dr Frunt that was published at noon on the 18th was damaged and it was only possible to publish a slightly reduced quality version.
Technical repairs to the file have now been made that restore the original quality and it has been split in two for easier downloading.
The Current Puzzle tab now contains the slightly reduced quality version and the original quality version.
The two versions are identical apart from recording quality and size.
|
| 2016-12-18 02:25 UTC |
There was a minor issue with the Consultant's Letter on the Puzzle tab, it contained some extra information unrelated to David's current problem. This information has
now been removed. If you downloaded your copy of the letter before this note was posted we advise that you download it again.
|
| 2016-12-18 00:01 UTC |
We, the Past Setters, have recently been notified of a problem with the mental health of the setter (David Kee), brought about by the stress of setting of this year's ATH.
It appears that large parts of this year's hunt have been destroyed and there is no available backup.
The Past Setters have been in contact with David's consultant psychiatrist and have come up with an action plan which involves ATHers in David's recovery.
Please see the Consultant's Letter on the Current Puzzle tab which explains the situation in more detail.
The Past Setters are working to assemble the pages that have survived from this year's hunt in a form that is accessible. It is planned to make the partial Hunt and the bugged
journey file mentioned in the Consultant's Letter available on the Current Puzzle tab at noon today. If you have any queries please continue to use
the address [email protected]
which is now being monitored and managed by the Past Setters.
Good Hunting, David needs YOU!
|
