To help get students in the Halloween spirit, AP Computer Science Principles teacher Autumn Rogers spent nearly a month in the STEAMWORK Design Studio creating an elaborate Halloween puzzle box. The sophomores and juniors in the class had to solve the box’s series of interconnected computer science problems to unveil the final prize!  

On puzzle day, students worked together applying their knowledge of: Boolean logic to solve a puzzle of  Halloween-inspired symbols used as variable names; binary to uncover the starting point of a cryptography puzzle; and, tree traversal algorithm to put ASCII characters in the correct order to decode ciphertext.  

Two-levels of prizes were at stake. Solving the first half of the puzzle unlocked a key to a 3D-printed padlock. That padlock secured a box containing the next puzzle as well a heap of Halloween candy! If they solved the second cipher, decrypted text said “NO HW THIS WEEK”! Luckily, all the groups managed to complete the puzzle with time to spare. 

Click here for an amazing video of the puzzle box in action.