CiSRA Puzzle Competition 2013 - Solutions

1C. Connected Nodes

The key to solving this puzzle is unfolding the stack of hexagons into a flat, connected shape (a "net").

You can do this by building the stacked shape (e.g. with paper and sticky tape) and physically unfolding it, or by carefully following the connections mentally or with a sketch.

In either case, the resulting unfolded shape is as follows, shown in the "correct" orientation:

The correct orientation can be deduced after recognising letter shapes, and noticing that the lighter coloured connections always appear in between letters.

The net spells a word: INTER.

The solution is a combination of the spelled-out word, and the word "net", motivated by the fact that the puzzle's solved form is a net, and the hint in the puzzle title (the Internet being a network of connected nodes), for the answer: INTERNET.