SAM CLARK: Hello, world.
My name is Sam Clark, and welcome to CS50 A Puzzle Day.
The famous day that kicks off the year at CS50 every single year.
It's such an exciting day.
It's all about collaborative problem solving.
So right inside here at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences,
we have hundreds of students in dozens of teams
who are working through a set of about a dozen puzzles
that have been created by our friends over at Meta.
Now, a lot of the students in there know a lot about computer science.
I personally, don't know anything about computer science.
But that makes me kind of an ideal host for right
now because you don't need to have any knowledge about computer science.
You don't need to have any programming experience whatsoever
to be involved in CS50 Puzzle Day because it's
all about that collaborative problem solving.
And to talk a bit about it is Professor David Malan himself,
who is overseeing all of this.
DAVID MALAN: Hey, Sam.
SAM CLARK: How's it going?
DAVID MALAN: Good to see you again.
Welcome back to campus.
SAM CLARK: Thank you so much.
Good to be here.
So in a couple of words, what is CS50 Puzzle Day all about.
DAVID MALAN: So CS50 Puzzle Day is all about solving problems.
And indeed, when we inaugurated this some years ago,
the message intended was to send a message that computer science is all
about problem solving and not about programming per se, like, when you were
in high school when I was in high school,
you probably remember kids sort of heads down writing code
and that was sort of all it was.
But it really is a lot more about problem
solving, not only in CS but in STEM fields Science, Technology,
Engineering, Math but also arts, humanities, social sciences and more.
And so really the goal of Puzzle Day is just
to bring everyone together to collaboratively work
on solving problems and just meet classmates, in this case.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, what advice would you
have for a student who is doing CS50 Puzzle Day for the first time in there.
DAVID MALAN: That's a good question.
We should have asked before they went inside.
But I think the advice would be just to take your time and have fun with it.
I think that all of the problems are meant to be challenging.
I would say on average, people spend at least 30 minutes on each puzzle.
So that's a decent amount of time.
So if you stare at it for the first time, you have no idea where to start,
that's kind of the point.
But it's very gratifying when you've solved the first one, the second one,
maybe even more than that.
SAM CLARK: And who created the puzzles?
DAVID MALAN: So the puzzles this year were
written, as has been the case in years past, by our friends at Meta,
formerly Facebook.
In fact, we have a lot of alumni from CS50 from Harvard and Yale
that go off to work at Meta in the real world.
And so they kindly come back every fall to help write and run this event.
SAM CLARK: Incredible, well, we're going to go talk to our friends
at Meta in just a moment.
But any final words of encouragement before we head in there
and start talking to some of the students who
are solving these puzzles right now?
DAVID MALAN: Indeed, if you yourself are watching this online,
and you're not here at Harvard today for CS50 Puzzle Day,
know that we'll have a CS50 X Puzzle Day this coming spring.
So it's a few months away.
But it'll be an event with the same kinds of puzzles
that you can participate with either family, your friends, your colleagues,
literally anywhere online in the world.
So not to worry if you're not here with us today in Cambridge.
SAM CLARK: Tremendous, well, thank you so much, Professor Malan.
We're going to head on in.
Again, CS50 Puzzle X, if you want to solve
some of these problems on your own at home, you're free to do that.
We have some quotes from previous participants
of CS50 X who said it was the most mind boggling day of their lives.
One of the most fantastic day of their lives.
And we're going to quickly pivot over here to some of the CS50 team.
Say welcome to Puzzle Day.
SPEAKER 1: Welcome Puzzle Day.
SAM CLARK: All right, rock and roll.
We're going to head in here.
We're at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences here at Harvard.
I did go to Harvard.
I did not do any engineering or Applied Sciences.
But if I had, I would not have ever seen this building because it is brand new.
And here we are where all of the students
are gathered working on their puzzles.
But the first folks that we're going to talk to
are our friends at Meta who created the puzzles that some of these students
are working on.
So I'm going to go one by one with you all.
Introduce yourselves.
Say Hello, world, my name is.
HELEN: Hi, I'm Helen.
RYAN: Hi, I'm Ryan.
ZACK: Hello, world.
I'm Zack.
SAM CLARK: Hello, world, retroactive hello, world.
So first thing is, walk us through a bit what your role is at Meta
and what that entails.
HELEN: I'm a data scientist, and I work on the VR notifications team.
So our team looks at how users interact with notifications related to VR.
SAM CLARK: Great.
RYAN: Thanks, so I'm a software engineer at Meta,
and I work on the Facebook metrics team, where we handle
the event logging for the Facebook app.
ZACK: I'm a software engineer working on product security.
So I try to make it harder for other engineers
to write security vulnerabilities and bugs.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic.
OK, so as we were discussing with Professor Malan outside,
CS50 Puzzle Day is not necessarily about computer science or about programming.
You don't need any experience.
It's all about puzzle solving.
How important is puzzle solving in the work that you do at Meta?
HELEN: Yeah, I think it's very relevant.
As a data scientist, a lot of what I'm doing
is understanding why users are behaving in a certain way.
And what we can do to better understand or better make their experience better.
So every time I do an analysis, it's kind of like a puzzle in and of itself.
And I think another thing is, when you're working on puzzles,
you have maybe hypotheses about what's going on.
And a lot of it is taking a deeper look there and thinking
about what's the right way to solve those
or potentially look for solutions and data to back up what's going on.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, same question.
RYAN: Yeah, so I think the iterative process between puzzle hunting
and software engineering is really the same.
So they both start off with formulating different solution methods,
collaborating with your peers and teammates,
thinking about various design decisions and trade-offs on which approach
to take.
And then when you finalize an approach, seeing if it works.
And if it works then great, and if it doesn't work, then, going back
exploring why it didn't work.
And then collaborating with your peers again to see a different solution.
So yeah, both problem solving methods are really the same.
ZACK: Yeah, I think there are two similarities for me that
really stand out.
The first is, at least to me, debugging my code and other people's code
and solving puzzle hunt style puzzles sort of scratch the same itch.
In both cases, you have a lot of data that may or may not
make sense to you at first, but you got to look for some pattern,
find something meaningful, maybe iterate on it a bit like Ryan was saying,
and then eventually get to an answer, whether that's an answer
that you submit to an answer checker or work in code.
And the other piece, for me, is just collaboration.
I think mystery-hunt style puzzles, the kinds of puzzles
that we're doing today, are just a great example of demonstrating
that you go much further as a team than you can individually, especially
with some of the harder puzzles.
One person will have some observation, another person
will throw in their insight, and sometimes
you end up with things that you would not have thought of on your own.
But working together as a team, you're able to come up with a great solution.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, great answers.
So you all designed the puzzles that these students are solving right now.
Is that correct?
What advice do you have for those students
as they're digging into those puzzles?
HELEN: I think a lot of things.
Just taking a look at the puzzle cohesively,
there might be details either in like the flavor text, which
is the intro for the puzzle or little details within the puzzle itself
that you might have missed the first time around.
So yeah, maybe taking a closer look at some of those things.
SAM CLARK: Yeah.
RYAN: Yeah, so I think my main tip would just be to leverage your teammates.
So I like to say 1 plus 1 is greater than 2.
So yeah, and also definitely try to just have fun and enjoy the event
and make new friends.
ZACK: Yeah, sometimes the best way to get unstuck on a puzzle
is to turn to the person sitting next to you, and say, hey,
so I figured out this and this and this, and I'm stuck.
Do you have any ideas?
This has worked for me countless times.
But also, I would just say a good puzzle by its construction
gives you exactly the information that you need, no more, no less.
So if you're looking at a puzzle and you're stuck,
and there's some information there that you haven't used yet,
think about why it's there and how you can work it in.
SAM CLARK: Great. great, teamwork makes the dream work.
Final question, maybe a little unorthodox.
How much would I have to bribe you to get the answers to all of the puzzles?
OK, good answer, yeah.
All right, all right, pleading the fifth.
ZACK: For you, no charge.
SAM CLARK: No charge for me.
I'm going to get all the answers before this wraps up.
All right, thank you so much again to our friends
at Meta for creating the puzzles.
You'll hear from them later on today.
Thank you so much, guys.
Now, as I said before we came in here, we're
in a pretty much brand new building, just a year or two old,
the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
All over the building, you'll see groups of students
who are working on these puzzles that our friends at Meta designed.
I'm going to talk with one of those groups
right now to see how that puzzle solving is going.
Hey, guys, are you ready?
All right, I hope I didn't come at a pivotal time.
Introduce yourself to the camera, to our friends at CS50 on the Instagram.
Say Hello, world, and my name is.
JEREMY: Sounds good, all right, I'll use it.
VIVIAN: Hello, world.
My name is Vivian.
WESLEY: Hello, world.
My name is Wesley.
JEREMY: Hello, world.
My name is Jeremy.
ZOE: Hello, world.
My name is Zoe.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, and as a team, have you come up with a team name?
Do you have a team name?
VIVIAN: I don't know if we've gotten there yet.
WESLEY: We are the Single Ladies in honor of Queen Bey.
SAM CLARK: The Single Ladies in honor of Queen Bey on her Renaissance Tour right
now.
Great answer.
Do you all agree with that one?
VIVIAN: Yes.
SAM CLARK: OK, great, yeah, great team.
In three words each, can you describe the experience
of CS50 Puzzle Day so far, three words.
VIVIAN: Challenging, fun, and invigorating.
SAM CLARK: Oh, invigorating, good choice, good choice, same question.
WESLEY: Collaborative, electric, and intense.
JEREMY: Intense, team-building, but hyphenated
so it's still one word, and fun.
SAM CLARK: OK.
I wasn't keeping track of how many words that technically was,
but we'll let it slide.
ZOE: Frustrating, rewarding, exciting.
SAM CLARK: OK, great.
Do you think that your team--
do you think you can win it all?
VIVIAN: Yes.
SAM CLARK: Yes, good, confidence we all agree.
They're in it to win it.
Who would you say around you is your biggest competition?
VIVIAN: No one.
SAM CLARK: No one, confident, all right.
Good team spokesperson here.
No one is their competition.
They're in it to win it.
Have you been engaging in any sabotage with any of the other teams?
WESLEY: You just gave us a great idea, though but no.
SAM CLARK: Great idea.
All right, so they might start now.
JEREMY: Yeah that's very, very good strategy for--
SAM CLARK: All right, fantastic, which puzzle are you on now?
Are you on the first puzzle, second puzzle?
VIVIAN: Books
ZOE: Whichever one the books one is.
SAM CLARK: All right, great.
Can you really quickly walk me through what
this puzzle is, what you're working on, what you're trying to figure out?
JEREMY: Maybe we walk you through one we actually have figured out, so.
SAM CLARK: OK, let's do that.
JEREMY: It's a little bit more expertise, OK.
SAM CLARK: Don't do it too loud because there's a whole bunch of groups around.
JEREMY: Genius, OK, so the puzzle that we're going to walk you through,
is called the zoo pals mystery dinner.
Basically it gives you a--
SAM CLARK: Zoo pals mystery dinner.
JEREMY: Yes, it gives you a cartoon animal.
And then you have to come up with a dish that matches the number of letters
available that is a well-known dish that's
associated with that particular animal.
So to give you an example, this particular one,
this is a picture of a monkey.
And it says died from baguette bludgeoning.
We deduced that it was monkey bread.
And then based off of that, you have to unscramble certain letters
at the end to find a final passphrase.
SAM CLARK: Wow, so multiple stages.
And how goes the puzzle that you're working on right no?
Do you feel like you're going to solve it?
ZOE: Yes, we will solve it.
SAM CLARK: Yes, we will solve it.
I love that.
I love the confidence.
Any final words before we move on to the next group here at CS50 Puzzle Day?
JEREMY: Single Lady Supremacy.
SAM CLARK: Single Lady Supremacy, anything else?
WESLEY: Good luck, everyone.
ZOE: That's all for-- good luck, everyone.
SAM CLARK: Ditto and final word.
VIVIAN: They'll need it.
SAM CLARK: All right, rock and roll.
We're going to move on to another group.
Thank you so much.
They're going to absolutely kill it.
Now we're heading towards the main atrium of this beautiful engineering
building.
This is some massive machine with switches.
I believe an old-timey computer.
I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it's very, very cool.
And as we're getting past this column, we're
heading towards the iconic CS50 duck, which I believe in week three or so
of CS50, students will learn all about why this duck is important.
They'll get little ducts of their own.
And it's welcoming everyone here to CS50.
We've got some cool art installations past here.
Do a little bit of this very cool, very cool.
Behind me, over here, we've got the fantastic CS50 Puzzle Day photo booth.
You'll be able to see a lot of those photos on the CS50 Instagram here.
But now what we're going to talk to our second group.
See how it's going in their puzzle solving.
Hey, team, are you ready to chit chat a little bit?
All right, here we go.
This team is going to introduce themselves.
Say hello, world.
My name is.
TOYOSI: Hello, world my name is Toyosi.
WAFEEKA: Hello, world.
My name is Wafeeka.
NORA: Hello, world.
My name is Nora.
TINGTING: Hello, world.
My name is Tingting.
LONNIE: Hello, world.
My name is Lonnie.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, do you have a team name that you've decided upon?
WAFEEKA: No, but we can come up with one.
Any ideas?
SAM CLARK: Think on it, think on it.
I'll come back to you on the team name.
If it comes to you, if there's a spark of inspiration, let me know.
How is CS50 Puzzle Day going for you so far?
TOYOSI: It's very hard, but it's also fun
to get to work with my friends to try to solve these puzzles.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, same question.
WAFEEKA: Yeah, no, as we've been working on the puzzles,
my head's starting to hurt, but it's OK.
We'll figure it out.
SAM CLARK: It's good.
It's important.
It's getting the cogs turning.
Could you describe a CS50 Puzzle Day in three words?
NORA: Three words?
SAM CLARK: Three words.
NORA: That's difficult. I'd say stressful, fun, rewarding.
SAM CLARK: Great, I love that trio.
TINGTING: Satisfying, delicious, and interesting.
SAM CLARK: Great, great, I love delicious.
There's a lot of free food downstairs for all participants.
Final one over here, CS50 Puzzle Day in three words?
LONNIE: Pizza, candy, friendship.
SAM CLARK: Pizza, candy, and friendship, CS50 Puzzle Day.
We'll get that printed on a shirt.
Do you have a favorite puzzle you've worked on so far?
WAFEEKA: I think the book, the library one was really cool.
We figured out half of it.
But we're just stuck at the very end.
But really cool how they switched one letter.
SAM CLARK: Very cool, so they're still stuck on that puzzle.
They're in the middle of it, but they're loving it.
Any advice that you would give for someone next year
who's doing CS50 Puzzle Day for the first time?
What advice do you wish you had heard?
TOYOSI: I don't know if there's any advice that I'd say.
Just come in with an open mind and prepare
to get stuck because it's not easy.
SAM CLARK: Prepare to get stuck, good advice.
Any other advice?
NORA: ChatGPT will maybe help you.
SAM CLARK: ChatGPT will maybe help you.
Any final words about CS50 Puzzle Day before we move on,
and I'll let you return to your puzzles?
NORA: Honestly, just have fun and enjoy it.
It's a great time to hang out with friends.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, have fun, enjoy it.
Thank you all so much.
Get back to your puzzles, good luck.
And with that, we're going to head back this way.
We're, again, in the main, main atrium of this beautiful new building.
You can see, if we pan down, over here a full selection
of food down there for all of these very hungry problem solvers.
And when CS50 day--
excuse me, when CS50 Puzzle Day wraps up at about 3
o'clock Eastern time, all the students are
going to gather here in front of the projectors.
Some of those Meta team members you met earlier,
are going to give all of the answers to the puzzles.
We've got raffle prizes and prizes for who
did the best, for who solved the most puzzles in the least amount of time.
And it might be this team that we're coming up to right now.
Are you all ready to answer some questions?
All right, here we are.
I'm going to sit.
I'll sit right here.
All right, here's another team of students working on their CS50 Puzzle
Day puzzles.
I'm going to pass the microphone around.
Introduce yourself, say hello, world.
My name is.
We'll start here.
SHASHWAT: Hello, world my name is Shashwat.
FAHSI: Hello, world.
My name is Fahsi.
MICHELLE: Hello, world.
My name is Michelle.
SARAH: Hello, world.
My name is Sarah.
YAYA: Hello, world.
My name is Yaya.
SAM CLARK: All right, fantastic, do you have a team name collectively?
Have you decided on a team name?
FAHSI: We have not.
SAM CLARK: OK, all right, get back to me if you decide on a name.
Let me know, absolutely.
How is CS50 Puzzle Day going so far for you all?
How many puzzles have you worked on?
How many puzzles have you solved?
Where are we at so far?
FAHSI: So we've worked on four puzzles so far.
We've only been able to solve one.
But the other three, we're almost done.
So we're doing them simultaneously, just so we can see
if we can solve all of them together.
SAM CLARK: Doing great, good team dynamic.
Can you walk me through the one that you have solved so far?
SARAH: OK, we've solved the one on the music.
And basically, we had photos of music bands,
and then you have to get the name of the band
with the number of letters that is written under the photos,
and then you have a list of numbers in the end.
And you have to order the bands in the order of numbers
because every band has a number.
And then you order them.
You get the first letter of each band, and then that's it, yeah.
That's the correct answer.
SAM CLARK: All right.
And that's the one you've solved so far.
But four more are currently in the works throughout the team, amazing.
Could you describe the experience of CS50 Puzzle Day in just three words?
SHASHWAT: Exhilarating.
SARAH: Delicious.
SAM CLARK: Ooh, exhilarating, delicious.
FAHSI: Very challenging.
SAM CLARK: Very challenging, two words for that one, but we'll take it.
It's a modifier, very.
Any pieces of advice that you would give to someone
who is about to start CS50 Puzzle Day?
Over here.
YAYA: OK, my piece of advice would be to allocate roles within your group.
Because at first, I think with the first puzzle, we weren't sorting it.
We weren't doing it in a good process, and we got stuck.
But for the other ones, what we did was we each took turns.
We collaborated, and we began to function
as a group, rather than a bunch of individuals, which
is why we managed to solve one, and we are now very, very close
to solving another.
SAM CLARK: I love that.
I love that.
You've kind of figured out the team dynamics here a bit.
YAYA: Yeah.
SAM CLARK: OK, question on that note.
Are you in it to win it?
SHASHWAT: Yeah.
SAM CLARK: We're going to win?
All right, they might be the winners here.
SHASHWAT: That's the plan.
SAM CLARK: OK. who around here would you say is your biggest competition?
OK, very firmly, those ones over there are the biggest competition.
OK, fair enough, you're going to win.
I have faith in you.
Any final closing words to the CS50 Instagram audience?
SHASHWAT: Come to CS50 Puzzle Day.
SAM CLARK: Come to CS50 Puzzle Day, all right.
SARAH: If you're watching this, you have to come next year, next like thing.
SAM CLARK: Come next time, or to CS50 X, which you can find online.
All the information will be on the Instagram page.
All right, in this time during our interview,
have you come up with a team name?
Team name over here.
YAYA: There is one thing that we all have in common.
SAM CLARK: OK.
YAYA: Which is that we all come from different countries.
SAM CLARK: Oh, fantastic.
YAYA: If I'm not mistaken.
So we could--
SAM CLARK: Incredible.
FAHSI: Five Eyes.
YAYA: The Five Eyes.
SAM CLARK: The Five Eyes.
I love it.
SARAH: It's I's and eyes.
SAM CLARK: I's and eyes, double meaning.
We love to see it.
All right, thank you all so much.
Best of luck with the rest of this.
And we're going to head up over here and start
heading outside to talk to Carter, who's been helping run this entire event.
Do we have Carter over this way?
I think so.
Say hi over here to other members of our incredible CS50 team
who have put this entire production together.
And we're going to head outside to wrap up this tour of CS50 Puzzle Day.
Thank you so much for joining us.
As Professor Malan said at the beginning of this live stream,
you can find information about how to do CS50 Puzzle Day yourself,
even if you can't come to the big beautiful engineering building here.
CS50 X Puzzle Day is a fully online experience
where you can get these puzzles created by our friends
at Meta, solve them with teams on your own.
And finally, with that, we are here with Carter.
How's it going?
CARTER: I'm good.
How are you?
SAM CLARK: I'm doing wonderfully.
Here, you can actually hold this.
CARTER: Oh, thank you.
SAM CLARK: How has CS50 Puzzle Day been going?
CARTER: Pretty good so far.
We've had about 400 attendees here in the SEC,
which is actually a lot more than we were expecting.
So it's great.
SAM CLARK: Is it in the running for the biggest Puzzle Day?
CARTER: Definitely in the running.
I don't know what historically our biggest one was,
but it was closer to 500, 600.
So still good to see folks coming out today.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, and we heard from Professor Malan and from our friends
at Meta, about how Puzzle Day itself isn't necessarily
about computer science, not necessarily about programming.
What is the importance of puzzle solving in the world of computer science?
CARTER: Yeah, I think puzzle solving gets
us this idea of trying to just solve problems, in general.
So when you're facing a computer science problem,
you might not know what to do to start it.
And so I think these puzzles are good for getting
in the habit of feeling uncomfortable.
I don't know how to start solving this but feeling like you can still
go out and try it and make some progress along the way if that makes sense.
SAM CLARK: Amazing, yeah.
And we've asked this question to a whole bunch of groups.
I'm going to ask it to you, as well.
What is CS50 Puzzle Day in just three words?
CARTER: Oh, in three words?
About having fun.
SAM CLARK: Oh, about having fun.
I like that.
Any final words for our viewers at home, for our Instagram fans
before we end this live stream and let them check in later?
CARTER: No just really glad you all could join us virtually here.
We'll have some of these puzzles available to you in the spring,
so make sure you participate in CS50 X Puzzle Day next spring, as well.
SAM CLARK: Fantastic, join us in the spring,
and join us here on campus, as well.
This has been CS50 Puzzle Day.
Again, I've been Sam Clark.
You can find me @theonlysamclark on Instagram if you so desire.
But with that, we're going to end our live stream.
We're going to check back in with some of these students
as they work on their puzzles.
And soon we will find out the winners and the solutions
from our team at Meta.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.