Mindfield

03 August 2012

First Newsletter 03 August 2012

The purpose of this newsletter is to inform its readers about the working, setup and in brief, a blueprint of this unique project, Mindfield.

General Information
OriginMindfield was conceptualised in early May 2012, from that initial spark, it has now become a gentle flame which we believe, has the potential to become a raging fire in the coming future. Work on Mindfield began on 10 June 2012 and the actual Mindfield website is expected to go live on 12 December 2012.

What is Mindfield?
Mindfield is going to be a website, where users will be able to log on and access a vast array of high quality logical and analytical problems. These problems will be either hand-picked or prepared from scratch. At Mindfield, the user requires no pre-requisite knowledge of a particular discipline, elementary mathematical skill and intellect shall suffice. Examples of the quality, level and construction of problems will be posted later on the official Facebook page.

ObjectivesAt Mindfield, our objective is to provide the users, a high quality, intellectually engaging and interesting set of mental exercises which help the user to develop a new outlook on problem solving. Many people find it hard to solve problems, be it simple, trivial decision making or a high level mathematical riddle. One of the reasons for this to happen is that we never approach the problem in a way it should be, we know what information is given to us and also what we already know but most importantly, we often fail when it comes to bringing these two together. Mindfield aims at helping users develop a simplistic, basic approach to modern day problem solving.

What is special about Mindfield?

The thing that makes Mindfield special is that it is conceptualised and will be run by students. As students are the exposed to the most problem solving challenges out of all the sections of society, we have deigned Mindfield keeping in mind the users intellectual needs and also the issues faced while solving problems. Also, Mindfield is extremely special because it will give users detailed analysis corresponding to each problem. Mindfield will give you your performance statistics as well as those of other Mindfield users.

This newsletter is authored by Sankalp Sethi, founder, The Mindfield, for any queries or feedback regarding The Mindfield, you can send an email to sankalp [dot] sethi94 [at] gmail [dot] com.

Mindfield

First Newsletter 03 August 2012

19 July 2012

Technical Information
Mindfield will be live 24 hours a day, 365 days a week; users can log on and begin with Mindfield at any time. Users will be presented problems in a sequential manner, one by one. Each successful solve will take the user to the next problem. A rank roster will be drafted after 30+ people have solved at least 2 problems. The scoring will be absolute and every person will be ranked according to his/her absolute score. The scoring algorithm is as follows-

S = 1+ 0.5+D-(T/C# )
Here, S is the absolute score. 0.5 is the base score awarded for a correct answer. D is the difficulty gradient of the problem which will be an integer which will vary from problem to problem. T is the time taken by the user to solve the problem in seconds.*

*When the problem gets displayed to the user, a starting timestamp will be recorded, when the
correct answer is punched in, a closing timestamp will be recorded. The difference between these two will give us T. Suppose if you see the problem today at 12:00 and give the correct answer at 12:00 the next day, your T will be 86400 that is 24 full hours, even if you log off and log on again.

C is the complexity quotient of the problem. The complexity quotient is an essential part of our scoring algorithm, it is the average time taken (in seconds) by Mindfield benchmarkers to solve the particular problem.

Benchmarking - Mindfield benchmarkers are the most crucial link in the Mindfield chain, these are people who have mastered the art of problem solving, they are extremely intelligent people with high IQs and who have many accolades and achievements in the field of problem solving. A detailed profile of The Mindfield Benchmarkers will be posted soon.

Mindfield problem marathons- These will be periodic problem solving marathons which will be held online after every two months, further details regarding this will be disclosed further. Winner of these marathons will be awarded a cash prize.

This newsletter is authored by Sankalp Sethi, founder, The Mindfield, for any queries or feedback regarding The Mindfield, you can send an email to sankalp [dot] sethi94 [at] gmail [dot] com.