College Puzzle Challenge

College Puzzle Challenge is an annual puzzlehunt hosted by Microsoft, inspired by the Microsoft Puzzle Hunt or the MIT Mystery Hunt. However, several key features differentiate College Puzzle Challenge from these events. College Puzzle Challenge is a timed event, and while it does have a meta-puzzle, if no team has solved the meta-puzzle at the end of the allotted time, the event is declared over and alternate means are used to determine winners. Registration is limited to current undergraduate and graduate students and those who have graduated in the last year before the event, and team size is strictly regulated to four students. Instead of the winning team hosting the next event as with the Microsoft and MIT hunts, the event is always hosted by Microsoft employees. Since College Puzzle Challenge takes place at multiple locations simultaneously, events are coordinated by a puzzle control team at Microsoft's corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. Ground teams consisting of school alumni who are now Microsoft employees manage on-site issues such as holding opening and closing ceremonies and distributing puzzles. During the event, participants work on a number of puzzles and submit the answer to each one. The solutions to these puzzles are fed into a meta-puzzle, and the first to solve that is determined to be the winner.