Step 0: Clues Overview
The puzzle starts with two distinct clues: a picture and bird sounds. Both visual and audio elements are essential.
Combine the visual and auditory hints to find the connection.
Step 1: Picture Analysis
The image shows a piece of ham and a hummingbird.
“Ham + Hummingbird” sounds like “Hamming bird,” indicating Hamming Code.
Step 2: Understanding Hamming Code
Research reveals that Hamming code is used to detect and correct errors in binary data.
The puzzle involves binary encoding and error correction.
Step 3: Audio as Binary
Bird calls correspond to bits, and raven calls mark parity bits.
There are different kinds of Hamming code implementations; the raven hints at them being just naively placed at powers of two!
Step 4: Transcribing the Audio
Map each sound to 0 or 1 based on species and position. The full binary sequence is:
Step 5: Decoding with Hamming
Use the parity bits (alignment hinted from raven calls) to correct any errors and extract the data bits:
Step 6: Converting to Text
Divide the corrected binary into bytes and translate to ASCII.
The message reads “1981 award.”
Step 7: Identifying the Award
Investigate notable awards from 1981 related to coding or information theory.
The Harold Pender Award at the University of Pennsylvania fits the clue. It was given to Hamming himself for his work on the Hamming code.