Seti - The Search for Extraterrestrial life - exercise

The execercise has to be done by two teams:

1. One team is the sending team. This team has the task to send a string of zero's and one's containing a message. The team has the task to devise its own code to transmit the message.
2. The second team is the receiving team. This team has two tasks: 1) to demonstrate that the receiving code contains information and 2) what the message is.
3. The extra constraint is that the receiving team has no clue where the message starts. The message is not written in English.

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Solution

IMO the easiest solution is communication by means of graphical pictures. Each picture should look like a small fax.
For example:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
y             y
y     zzz     y
y   z     z   y
y  z       z  y
y z         z y
y z         z y
y  z       z  y
y   z     z   y
y     zzz     y
y             y
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

       1

But you can also make more pictures:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx y y y hh y y h o y y oooo y y o o y y oooo y y o o y y o o y y zzzzzzzzzzz y yz zy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 2

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx y y y q y y hhhhq y y ee h y y h oy y h hh y y h h o y y h h o y y mhh oy y y xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 3

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx y x y y xy hhy y x y h y y x y h y y x z x ee y y y x e y y y x ee y y yx h y y x h y y h y xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 4

The idea is that all pictures should be related to each other and give more and more detail who we are.

1. The first one is our planet
2. The second one is an animal at the surface of our planet
3. The third one is a detail of the head.
4. The fourth one ? guess

Created: 6 January 2011

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