We're all Winners

Amazing, splendiferous, stupendous! What more can I say. Everyone who reached the end of this year's Challenge is <politicianvoice>a winner in a very real sense</politicianvoice> and deserves a medal. Since medals are not so easily downloadable (but given the interest in 3d printing, that might change in a few years) we have decided to maintain our current policy of awarding certificates instead, and you can download yours from the feedback page as usual.

Of course we do have some other prizes to award:

• The winners of the GCHQ Prize this year are Sam Udale Smith, George Timbrell, Nas Andriopoulos and Will Neaverson from King Edward's School Bath.
• The IBM Prizewinners are from King Edward's School Birmingham (spooky , huh?) and they are Andrew Macarthur and Vishal Patil
• The Trinity College, Cambridge Prize is awarded to Natalie Behague and Florence Salter from Dartford Grammar School for Girls.

Congratulations to all three teams who put in a splendid effort. This year we also have prizes from Netcraft, who have donated 58 rucksacks to be distributed to the top twenty teams on the overall leader board. (I hope you got the number of team members right when you registered as that is how many rucksacks you will get!)

Of course we also have the part A prizes for Challenge 8. Each of the 8 teams listed below will win a cheque for £25 and we will be in touch by email to the address you gave us when registering, so do please check it and get back to us promptly so we can process your award.

At this point I usually say "if you didn't win there is always next week", but of course now there isn't and I always feel a bit sad at that. Of course there is always next year, but if you are impatient and feeling similar withdrawal symptoms I do have a possible solution. In fact I have two. We will be holding a prize giving at Bletchley Park on March 30th, and a number of you will receive invites to that. The top three teams will all receive invitations to lunch there, while teams 4-20 will be invited to send a representative to collect their Netcraft prizes at the afternoon lecture and tour. We may have some additional tickets available, and these are almost as rare as (and much more valuable than) tickets to the Wonka chocolate factory. If you would like to come to this fabulous afternoon please apply for tickets asap (details in the article below).

If you can't come to the prize giving but can't let the Challenge go without a fight, stick around and take part in Harry's Game. This is a version of the Cipher Challenge written by the competitors themselves. We will publish more details here next week, but it will start at 3.15pm on Thursday 9th February.

Thanks to everyone who took part this year, whether as a competitor, a forum moderator, or a moral supporter. It has been fantastic fun. I hope you can join us again next year. All the best, Harry

Winners of the Part 8A Prizes:

• Great Baddow High School, Chelmsford from Great Baddow High School
• Daniel Edgar, Stefan Clarke, Ashley Tudhope from The Nelson Thomlinson School
• Momentum from Ulverston Victoria High School
• Isobel, Rosie, Michalis, Louisa from Clifton High School
• Hannah from Oxford High School
• Elliott Hazel Joe Matt Kerry Jay Ryan Jade from Calthorpe Park School
• Sammy, Josie, Amy and Hannah from Worthing College
• Kheriya Ali Sharif; Biiftuu Aba-Godu; Fjoralba Farruku; Lameez Maharaj; Grace Tchamba; Fosa Fass; Kirsten Land; Amy Garrad; Louise Wong; Safiyya Abdullah; Menghan Liu; Sherkya Muhtar; Zelin Mumtaz from Hornsey School for Girls