Fulfilling Puzzle (solution)

by Kai Huang

The first step is to encode each string of letters using a common puzzle encoding such that it fits into a grid of one of the given sizes. You’ll have to do a little bit of experimentation to see which combinations produce sensible grids, since all the strings are length 12. However, it should be pretty clear after getting a couple of correct grids that the results are supposed to draw letters (or parts of letters).

The string PBKEJUJWRUCE is encoded into the 10 x 6 grid using binary.

    PB    1000000010
    KE    0101100101
    JU    0101010101
    JW    0101010111
    RU    1001010101
    CE    0001100101

The string PCAPASVXLXLE is encoded into the 12 x 6 grid using Braille.

              *****'***''*
    PCAPAS    *'''''*'''*'
              *'''''*'''*'
              *'***'***'*'
    VXLXLE    *'''*'''*''*
              *****'***'''

The string RRTZXZXVTVRR is encoded into the 14 x 6 grid using ASCII.

    RR    10100101010010
    TZ    10101001011010
    XZ    10110001011010
    XV    10110001010110
    TV    10101001010110
    RR    10100101010010

The string VGRQUQRBRYVW is encoded into the 7 x 6 grid using Morse code.

    VG    ***---*
    RQ    *-*--*-
    UQ    **---*-
    RB    *-*-***
    RY    *-*-*--
    VW    ***-*--

After encoding, the 4 resulting grids should be arranged side by side into a readable message. There are only 24 arrangements, and only one arrangement causes all the 1’s and dots to draw letters, separated by single columns without 1’s and dots. The correct arrangement is shown below (0’s and dashes have been omitted for ease of reading).

    ***   *1 1  1 1 1  1 ***** ***  *1       1
    * *  * 1 1 1  1 11 1 *     *   *  1 11  1 1
    **   * 1 11   1 11 1 *     *   *  1 1 1 1 1
    * * ***1 11   1 1 11 * *** *** *  1 1 1 111
    * * *  1 1 1  1 1 11 *   *   *  *1  1 1 1 1
    *** *  1 1  1 1 1  1 ***** ***      11  1 1

The answer BAKING SODA can be read off the image.