THE HINCKS SPIRE 

My coders tell me there's a "bug" in the "coding" of my robotic masterpieces.

 

They said I need to find the "code word" so I can erase all "instances" or else something "bad" could happen.

​

I haven't the foggiest what they're talking about. Your expertise is greatly appreciated!

Hint 1

The Crafty Corner looks like a good place to start.



Hint 2

You’ll need to combine the two quilt templates to reveal a secret message.



Hint 3

There are no numbers here, but it does look like there are words that rhyme with numbers.



Hint 5

- pine = nine

- rate lean = eighteen

- poor = four

- if seen = fifteen

- shelve = twelve

- nun = one

- swore mean = fourteen

- glue = two

- eleven spleen = seventeen

- heaven = eleven

- skate = eight

- jive = five

- tricks = six

- mix clean = sixteen

- eleven = seven

- sea = three

- zen = ten

- per bean = thirteen



Hint 6

Each rhyming number corresponds to two letters on the opposite quilt.



Hint 7

Put the pairs of letters in order, based on their rhyming numbers. “nun” rhymes with “one”, so the first two letters of your secret message is “PU”



Hint 10

The Home team and the Visiting team never scored a run in the same inning. That’s pretty coincidental, given that they played so many innings.



Hint 8

Once you’ve decoded the quilt message, you should find the message “PUSH SPEECH UP FOR A HOME SCORE DOWN FOR AWAY”



Hint 9

The secret message you found in the quilt templates will be helpful in combination with the sports section and the arts section.



Hint 11

Reference the sports scores to LITERALLY push the speech up or down for each inning.



Hint 12

Go letter by letter of the speech in the Arts section. If the Home team scored a point that inning, move the letter above the current line of text. If the Visitors scored a point that inning, move the letter below the current line of text. If no one scored a point that inning, leave the letter where it is.



Hint 13

After you’ve moved each letter in the speech, you will have three lines of text that give you instructions.



Hint 4

Every word in the quilt rhymes with a number, and for our purposes, words can’t rhyme with themselves!



Hint 14

After you’ve pushed the letters up and down, you should see the message:

“Fold right e

dge to star fold le

ft to diamond”



Hint 15

Take a closer look at the robot on the front page.



Hint 16

Fold the sides of the paper towards the robot, so that the edge touches either the diamonds or the stars.



Hint 17

After the paper is folded, there is a secret message beneath the robot.



Solution

When you collect the appropriate number of letters from the beginning or end of each phrase, you end up with "E", "XT", "ER", "MIN", "A", "TE", which you can read left to right to get the final answer "EXTERMINATE." (Uh, *gulp* exterminate?!)



Hint 18

The secret message beneath the robot is "From opinion, take first from the first through the seventh from the seventh."



Hint 20

"Take upside-down pins from beginnings otherwise ends"



Hint 19

Take the first word from the first paragraph of the opinion article, then the second word from the second paragraph, and so on until you have a seven word sentence.



Hint 21

Use the number on the pin to inform how many letters you should take from the quote next to the pin. Use whether the pin is right-side up or upside-down to inform if you take the letters from the beginning or ending of the quote.