NEW CHALLENGE

Congratulations to Cadet Jorge Esquivel who correctly answered the puzzle below.  Cadet Esquivel said that he always gets the puzzlers right, but that he never tells anyone.  I certainly believe him.  Puzzled as to how he figured it out?  Here's a hint:  think about what happens when a team is elimated.  For example, what happens when the Rocks eliminate the last Scissor?

Here's a new challenge, open to all cadets:

Commander W. was having a tough time getting his lazy cadets to learn their general knowledge, but he noticed that the cadets often wasted time by playing the game "Rock, Paper, Scissors". He made a game with similar rules in order to encourage the students to learn their facts.


The class would be divided into three teams: Rock, Paper and Scissors. The instructor would ask the students a question and the class would raise their hands if they knew the answer. If the first person to answer the question correctly is in the Rock team, he or she would choose one player from the Scissors team to be eliminated. Similarly, if a player from the Scissors team was first to answer the question, then he or she would eliminate a member from the Paper team. Lastly, if a player from the Paper team was first to answer correctly, he or she would eliminate a member from the Rock team.

The commander would then continue asking questions until only one team still has members. That team would be declared the winner and all its members would win a remarkably valuable prize.

However, as soon as he explained the rules to the class, one particularly clever cadet (who must have been just visiting) immediately found a large flaw that made the game unplayable. Can you do the same?

This challenge will conclude at 0730 18 January 2012.  Good luck!