Hots On Grill Formatting

Oops, nevermind! Finally realized that it wasn't just coincidence that the letter grid has the same number of boxes as the grills ;-)

EMS, you are clearly a math puzzle person. I just can't arrange the hots properly. I'm ready to put the grill away and boil those dogs. Can you offer a hint? (Word puzzles are much more my strength.)

You don't really need math other than being able to count the filled spaces. The thing that helped me the most was actually cutting out the little hots so I could move them around. If you use this method, when you solve a grill be sure to mark the spaces where your hots are, since you'll have to move them to another grill.

Also for some reason the left hand grill was very hard for me while the middle and right ones came right together. If you get stuck on one try another for a while.

Interesting... I thought the one on the right was the hardest...

The first one I completed was the one on the right, then the middle then the leftmost.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but the leftmost puzzle has one 3-piece hot dog that is in the second column that can be shifted up or down one space, and still have the puzzle validly solved. That's the only puzzle that I saw two valid solutions (though only minorly different obviously).

I thought that too Jared, but if it is in the upper position, it would be diagonally adjacent to another dog.

I wish I could say that my less-than-prodigious spatial reasoning skills got me through this, but it was really myself and my father alternating between the three grills and sharing many choice curse words until finally, "Wow! I got it! Are you FREAKING KIDDING ME THAT'S ALL I HAD TO CHANGE?!?!"

I found this puzzle to be a hazard to my blood pressure.

Oops, you're right EmDeeEm! :)

Thanks for the encouragement. I mostly solved each one, I got to the point where one dog was wrong, but I couldn't work out which one...

Hoping I had enough squares the same on each puzzle to give me a hint, I started circling letters. Ta Da! I figured it out. Thanks!

I'm a bit confused - how can 9 out of 12 squares in one row be filled and NONE of them be adjacent? That would leave only 3 empty squares. Someone help me figure out where I'm confused?

Thanks!

Hi, Ariane.

If you put a foot-long hot dog down, that's 5 adjacent squares that are filled right there out of your twelve. That leaves 7 spaces in the row where you need to fit in 4 more dog parts. A regular hot is 3 long... If you put that in the 7 spaces (leaving at least a single square gap between the 5 and the 3). You've now filled 9 of the 12 spaces (5 + 1 + 3 = 9). That leaves 3 spaces left over (12 - 9 = 3) and if you leave 1 more space to leave room between the dogs you actually have 2 spaces where you could orient either type of dog vertically so that only one of the two squares is used.

That's one of the things that helped me to get moving on two of the grills... A 9 row had to be filled by a foot-long and a regular and one more dog oriented the other way.

A 10 is even more restrictive in terms of options. There's only one combination of dogs that will fill a 12-wide row. Although they might be shifted a little bit left or right.

PS: For anyone else trying to solve this... Someone else mentioned this already, but no number on a row or column means it doesn't matter how many pieces of hot-dog are in it. (I'm used to doing another kind of puzzle (nonograms aka "paint by number" logic puzzles) where no numbers means that the row/column is empty).

Thank you! It seems so simple when you say it :)

Had a 6 am flight today and the d&c was late delivering papers to the airport, so I'm doing this as explained by email... Makes it interesting, haha.

If anyone needs a jump start, here is the entire top line of the leftmost hotdog puzzle:
3 3 2 3 3 1 1 3 2 5 2 5

Moderators, if this is giving too much, feel free to deleted my post. I just thought those that are having a lot of problems could use a little help.

omg now I am more confused...
*Sigh* we thought we had it...
but it is not working
*gggrrrrr*

my son and I went to Starbucks...
we figured out how the hot dogs all fit... got home and I screwed it up trying to figure out the code.. now I can not read it anymore...

I hate to say this but I think we are giving up...
I guess my life is too busy for this game :(

I have all the ingredients and a kick-ass recipe if someone wants it.

Don't give completely up - just do the fun parts! I don't think we should expect to be able to get 100% of all possible points, but even getting some points will help your faction, and will keep you in the running for a ticket. I'm also switching into a more casual mode - there's no way I'm going to run around every day looking for coffee houses (I don't even drink coffee..!)

Definitely submit your recipe - for the challenges you can win regardless of the number of points you have.

MotherandSon

Don't give up on the whole game. Remember the whole objective is to benefit charity.

I know I had a horrible time with the Rebus puzzle last Saturday and had to get help, but todays Hot Dog puzzle was fairly easy. Some puzzles will be easier for some and hard for other.

My son and I had a talk... we are going to continue... at a leisurely pace so that is fun...
I started this game because it was for charity and thought it would be a good way to bond with my son (he is VERY much so a teenager) - unfortunately we found ourselves stressed... going back to making it FUN! :)

oh oh oh and I can not wait to make my recipe ;)

Thats the spirit! I keep thinking I should slow down and focus more on my classes >.>