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The best thing from Gouda since…

Advent of code 2024

What’s the best thing to come out of Gouda after cheese? We like to think it’s Technolution. Just like Gouda cheese, we’re all about quality – but instead of dairy, we’re into solving puzzles. Big ones, small ones, complex ones, and sometimes even the kind that make you want to pull your hair out. Puzzling isn’t just a hobby here; it’s who we are.

We love Puzzles

At Technolution, we love puzzles. Whether it’s tackling complex technical challenges for our clients or solving the brain-teasing riddles of Advent of Code, puzzling is in our DNA. For years, our colleagues have enthusiastically (and occasionally with a bit of frustration 😉) taken part in Advent of Code.

This year, we’re proud to sponsor Advent of Code. Because we want to make sure everyone can continue enjoying this amazing initiative!

Counting down to December 1st

We can’t wait for December 1st, when the first puzzle goes live. To get into the spirit, you can start puzzling right here already – a chance to test your skills and get your brain warmed up for what’s to come!

Happy puzzling

Happy puzzling, and who knows – we might just see your name on the Advent of Code leaderboard.

Puzzle 1: Piet hats

The pressure on Sinterklaas and the Pieten for the “Project of the Year” increases every year as December approaches. To handle this pressure, it’s important for the Pieten to stay fit and alert throughout the year. That’s why they play games and solve puzzles regularly.
Sinterklaas came up with a challenging riddle involving their hats to keep the Pieten sharp. He placed a sticker on the hats of 200 Pieten. Some hats get a sticker of Gouda cheese, and the others get a sticker of a stroopwafel. The Pieten cannot see the sticker on their own hat, but can see the stickers on everyone else’s hats. Sinterklaas tells the Pietenthat there is at least one person with a cheese sticker and at least one person with a stroopwafel sticker.

The Rules

The Pieten are not allowed to talk to each other and cannot share information.
Every minute, they are allowed to say out loud what they think is on their own hat (cheese or stroopwafel).
Sinterklaas has announced that there is at least one Piet with a cheese sticker on their hat.
100 Pieten get a cheese sticker, 100 get a stroopwafel sticker. The Pieten do not know this.

The Question

After how many minutes will all the Pieten know which sticker is on their own hat?

Oh yeah – i know it

Puzzle 2 – Part 1: Turing Chocolate Project

The developers in the Turing Chocolate Project write all their code in a well-known esoteric programming language. For this, they use custom-made chocolate symbols representing the eight instructions of this language.

This year, Project Piet had a good idea to cut costs and suggested replacing the expensive chocolate symbols with regular chocolate letters. Since the code this year doesn’t read any input, they even managed to get by with just seven letters.
During acceptance testing, it became unclear which letter corresponds to which instruction. However, there is still a unit test of which the output is known. The output of the following code is the string “42” (the characters ‘4’ and ‘2’, without a trailing newline):

PPPPPSRPPPPPPPPPPTFWRPPLFFL

Can you help figure out which letter corresponds to which instruction?

If you’ve cracked the code, what is the output of the following snippet?

PPPPPPPSRPPPPPPTFWRPPPPPPPLPPPPPPPPLFLFL

I’ve found the solution

Puzzle 2 – Part 2: Turing Chocolate Project

Instruction Piet in the Turing Chocolate Project is researching new instructions. He has adapted the code for quantum computing, and added two extra experimental instructions for this purpose. In his proof-of-concept system, these instructions do not yet have a function, and they can be safely ignored. Instruction Piet also had to deal with the cost-saving measures, but he uses different letters than the rest of the team. His code can read input, so there are a total of ten different instructions. However, the documentation for his project is also in a sorry state, and it is unclear which letter corresponds to which instruction.

Luckily for you, Instruction Piet also implemented a unit test. This unit test takes in the single symbol “1” as input, and once again outputs the same string “42” if the input is correct:

TCTNTNTNTTNTHETCTCTTCTNTCTU_NOCECELNHUN_ NEENTETUUN_ONETNTTNIETIU

Can you figure out the output of the following code?

The input for this snippet consists precisely of the output that you found as the solution to part 1 of the Turing Chocolate Project puzzle.

TCTTCHNETCTTCTU_OEHUTNTE_OUCELHETCTUC_OE HETETNENTCUCUCU_OUNUHETETETUUCU_OLHETU_O NLNECEH_NUCUC_ECEONUNTCTCIECENE_CIU_INUC UCUCIENECEECETCITCTTTCTCI_C__NELC_NECTCT NTTHUN_C_C_E_NONUHUIE_OUCUCU_N_C__N_C_IE CECIUCUUUCUCTI

I’ve cracked the final code