The 2006 Mathcamp Puzzle Hunt: Final Runaround

WARNING: The Round 2 metapuzzle solution is included below, and also a hint at the Round 1 metapuzzle solution!






Your team presents the second round metapuzzle solution, NEEDSHAMPOO. You go to see Dan in his room, where he's just finishing up work on the second round puzzles. Fortunately, you're there to tell him how to power his Time Machine. Dan explains what you need to do:

You must go back in time. I've set the Time Machine to go back to just before I was kidnapped, when I know that Evil Dan was here. You'll only have a few minutes before I get back to the room myself! You have to go back in time, get out of the Time Machine, and then stop Evil Dan. But you won'tbe able to harm him. I, um, kind-of made him invulnerable! Instead, take the Time Machine, turn it upside down and put it over Dan's head to turn it into a Transmogrifier. Then you'll transmogrify Dan into something...else.

Then you have to leave before I get into the room! I know that I didn't see you in the past, so if I see you now, it'll cause a temporal paradox and the universe will implode!

Dan places the shampoo in the Time Machine.

To use the Time Machine, all of you must have at least one foot inside the box. Then you must all close your eyes, and keep them closed until the sound effects are done. If you don't have your eyes closed then it won't work! When the sound effects are done, you'll be in the past. To use the Transmogrifier, you must do the same: close your eyes and wait for the sound effects to end.

Good luck! Everything depends on you!

You and your team steps into the Time Machine. The sound effects start. Your eyes are closed. When you open them... there's Evil Dan! He's wearing a black cape and is cackling wildly.

Fools! You cannot harm me! I am invincible!

You all hurriedly climb out of the box, and then turn it on Evil Dan.

Eh? What's that?

You close your eyes. The sound effects begin. What's inside the box seems to be... shrinking. A moment later the sound effects are done, and there's no Dan... just a small stuffed dog, "Sprinkles."

Just as you're about to start celebrating, you hear a key go into the lock outside. Fortunately, Dan drops his keys, and it delays him, just long enough for everyone to climb back into the Time Machine, with the transmogrified Evil Dan, and go into the future.

When you open your eyes, after the theme song ends, it is to Good Dan, who informs you that Condylarth is feeling much better but rather temporally flummoxed, and she will be delivering her lecture at wrap-up! Congratulations to all of you!