That's all folks! After three months of hard thinking, coding and cracking we have reached the end of this year's National Cipher Challenge. We have contacted the winners today so if you have not heard from us, you haven't won I am afraid. We are keeping the names secret for now and will be announcing them at the Prizegiving at Bletchely Park on March 7th. We may have some spare tickets for that event which is always good fun and includes a tour of the musuem. If you would be interested in coming please email us with numbers at
Of course, keeping the winners secret means we can't publish the leader board yet either. That will go live on March 7th wen we announce the winners, but in the meantime you can still donwload certificates to find out where you came on the leaderboard by using the Feedback link.
We will be writing to the finalists for the Winton Capital Management School Prize asking for more details about their proposals so we can decide on a winner, so please do look out for an email from us if you have entered, as a school, for that award.
We do have the part A prizes for Challenge 8 which we can announce today and they are awarded to:
Kirsten, Eloise, Clare, Matilda, Elizabeth, Amy, Sherkya, Maja from Hornsey School for Girls
Imogen Campbell Emily Streets Eddie Bonner Josh Pike Nathan Pounce from Didcot Sixth Form
Jonathan Townsend Madeleine Beestin Emily Stott from Alderman White School
Ruairidh(il capitaine) Padruig Rory Richard Seamus Alexander Fraser from St Mary's Music School
BKemp from William De Ferrers
TtoiseTia45 from South Wilts Grammar School
Twm David Matt from Ripon Grammar School
Sharon Sundaram Emily Bwanali Davina Haywood Patrycja Maruszewska Pelumi Ajayi George Hunt Tenisha Prah Caleb Griggs-Taylor from Coventry Blue Coat C of E Academy
Congratulations to all of you, prize-winners or not, you all have done exceptionally well and I hope that we will see you again next year. If you will be too old to take part then we wish you good luck in your new adventures in work or University and hope that you will keep in touch with us. We have a number of Cipher Challenge participants studying here at Southampton and we hope the rest of you will consider joining us too.
Thanks again to all of you for taking part, and to all your teachers for encouraging you. To all your families for putting up with the glazed expressions and snappy replies you give when you are frustrated and stuck, and to our estimable mods on the forum, without whom the place would be like the Wild West, only with bad jokes in place of guns. (OK, maybe that analogy doesn't work too well. Never mind.)
Finally (I know, we already did "Finally", but I am finding it hard to let go!) We will be opening up the mysterious Challenge 9 for everyone to see next Thursday at 3.15pm. It has proven to be very, very hard and will be good to see what you make of it. We wrote it as an invitational challenge for the top competitors in Challenge 8B, but it seems to have pretty much stumped them so have a go and see if you can do better! We will publish some hints if we feel generous enough.
Did I say "Finally" yet? Thought so, anyway, as Steve Jobs would have said, "One More Thing". We have been busy recently working on something new and we want you to know about it early. We are desigining a new cipher challenge engine that will allow us to customise the challenges for individual teams and we will be experimenting with it over the next few months. If you would like to keep in practice for next year's competition, or want or need a distraction from the daily grind then do keep an eye on the site for our trial challenges.