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Alan Turing Cryptography Competition

Manchester University are running their 5th Alan Turing Cryptography Competition this January.  It’s aimed at secondary and post 16 students.  If you are in the UK and in year 11 or below you can register for the official prizes, for everyone else you can still register and see if you make it onto the leaderboard.

Read some of the introduction to the competition below:

Do you like breaking codes and solving ciphers?
Can you, and your friends, unravel the mystery of the Artificial Adventure?
Would you like the chance to use your mathematical skills to win some great prizes?

The competition starts on Monday 25th January, and you can register your team (or join an existing team) here. A team consists of at most 4 members. It is also possible to register as a `non-competing’ team, for instance if you’re a teacher who would like to follow the competition or if some members of your team are too old to take part. Registration opens on Monday 30th November.  

The competition follows the story of two young cipher sleuths, Mike and Ellie, as they get caught up in a crptographic adventure `The Tale of the Artificial Adventure’. Every week or two weeks a new chapter of the story is released, each with a fiendish code to crack.  There are six chapters in total (plus an epilogue to conclude the story). Points can be earned by cracking each code and submitting your answer. The leaderboard keeps track of how well each team is doing. 

The competition starts on January 25th.  Click on the competition website to register – and good luck!