Lightning-fast results from the 3rd Annual National Artifact Puzzles Speed Contest that was held over Zoom on April 22!
The Individual Contest:
The Individuals contest puzzle was Birdhouses by Amariah Rauscher, which we kept completely secret until the contest (but you too can get it now).
It's a charming wooden jigsaw puzzle with 262 pieces featuring the cute birdhouses of Amariah Rauscher, but it's harder than it looks because puzzle designer David Figueiras gave it tricky whimsical edge (not shown!). Also, the puzzle has irregular piece shapes with leaf-shaped connectors.
Individual Contest Winners and Times
1st place: Sarah Schuler from Minnesota at 33 minutes, 44 seconds
2nd place: Lauren Kautz from Minnesota at 38 minutes, 41 seconds
3rd place: Kait MacKenzie from Massachusetts at 39 minutes, 32 seconds
Wow! That is fast! Congratulations!
Here's the timings for the top 20 finishers who were all blazing fast:
An extra special congratulations to Liberty Notley, who was the top scorer in our under-18 category, and came in at 20th overall!
Want to see how you'd do? You can now get Birdhouses and time yourself. The median time by contestants was 1 hour and 3 minutes.
Pairs Contest Winners and Times
We also ran a Pairs contest, for teams of 2 puzzlers working together. The contest puzzle was Sky Village by Heather Gauthier, which we kept completely secret until the contest (but you too can get it now).
This is a 409 piece wooden jigsaw puzzle of the lush Sky Village painting by Heather Gauthier. This is from our Ecru line, so the image is matte, and the puzzle is extra beautiful.
For the contest we did a decorative edge (it now has a straight edge because in retrospect we felt the decorative edge cut-off too much image detail), irregular piece shapes, leaf and knob connectors, and decorative whimsies. The puzzle design is by Tara Flannery.
1st place: Lauren Kautz and Sarah Schuler from Minnesota at 39 minutes, 7 seconds
2nd place: Yvonne Feucht and Tammy McLeod from California at 53 minutes
3rd place: Susanne Riehemann and Doug Ellwanger from California at 54 minutes, 10 seconds
Beyond the 3 prize-winners, here are all the super-fast top 20 finishers and their times:
The median time across teams was 1 hour and 53 minutes. Want to see how you'd do? You can now get Sky Village and time yourself.
More Speed Puzzling Contests:
Moderating our Zoom contest was Jonathon Cluff, who runs a series of Zoom speed puzzling contests with 500 and 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. You can learn about his events here.