Stage 3:
Falun to Edsbyn (57 miles)
At the same distance as the previous
stage, the trip from Falun to Edsbyn takes us further north at breakneck speeds.
Edsbyn is a small muggle town with a population of a little over 4,000. It is
famous for it's ski production industry, and also has a successful "bandy"
team. Bandy is a game similar to field hockey that muggles play, but this version
is played on ice. They call it bandy to prevent any confusion with the seperate
sport of ice hockey.
Edsbyn is the second checkpoint in
the Broom Race, and is where we'll start to see the field spread out as the
early leaders try to build a gap over the chasing pack. The next stage is the
second longest of the race, so every second gained here will help as the competitors
strike out due north for Ånge.
Your time challenges for this stage
are as follows:
Time
Challenge: This is a "Snake" wordsearch puzzle. In it, there are
no diagonals, but words can go in any other direction (up, down, left or right).
The difference this time, however, is that words are not always in a straight
line - they may bend and go around corners. The word groups in this Snake grid
may change directions, but always do so at 90 degrees (right angles) so even
when a change occurs, there are no diagonal lines. To make this challenge a
little harder, I'm not going to tell you what you are looking for, or how many
word groups there are to find. All I will say, is that the answers follow a
common theme, and this theme can be spelled out using the leftover letters (in
order) once you've found all the answers.
Find as many word groups as you can
and I'll give you 15 seconds for each correct one, so long as you tell me the
square it starts in (for example: Giant Green Gooseberries, A1 (that's neither
an actual answer, nor a clue as to what the theme is!)). Spell out the theme
of the puzzle, using the leftover letters to gain an additional 10 seconds.
You can find a printer friendly version
of this puzzle here.
The answers can be located here.
Bonus
time challenge: Check out the latest edition of Ron's favourite comic "The
Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle" - most notably the picture
on the cover. In this image, there are several "item pairs" to be
found. These will be shapes that are duplicated elsewhere in the image. These
items will be exactly the same in shape, but may be rotated, and may be of different
colours. Find as many pairs as you can and gain 15 seconds of time for each
correct pair you identify (note that the lettering is not part of the image).
The
answers can be located here.
Send your answers to 
by November 30th with the subject "ab123 - Broom Race Stage 3"
(where ab123 is your student ID)
