Front Office Football Central - OT: Word search

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OT: Word search - 12 months

Okay, a few days ago I was fiddling around with the whole "build-your-own-word-search" idea. We already did the nice little puzzle trying to put in the word names of various numbers into a given-sized box. That went pretty well.

I couldn't get too far with this one, but maybe you can. My idea was: take the names of the twelve months, and fit them into the smallest word search possible, measured by rectangular area.

I pretty quickly got them all to fit into an 8x9 grid, with a total area of 72. Getting that far took just a little bit of cleverness, but it was fairly simple - and wouldn't pose much trouble for the minds here, I don't expect.

But, can you do better?

As an aside, I hadn't really thought much about a "rectangular" word search that was only 1 or 2 rows by 30 or 60 or something columns. I suppose that's technically still a rectangle, but it's not entirely within the spirit of the puzzle. So, I'll set an arbitrary rule - the two dimensions of the rectangular shape each have to be at least 4.

Anyway... have at it. Again, I think an 8x9 grid is pretty easy... but if anyone can squeeze it into a 7x9, I'll be impressed. And perhaps there's some other dimension that gets the job done... 7x10, 5x14, who knows?

This one is much tougher than the puzzle from yesterday. I am currently working on 7x10 and I'm almost there.

How close are you?

Much tougher. I tried for 7x9, but didn't come close. Here's a 7x10:

Code:

# M A Y J # #

D A U G U S T

E R R O L E F

C C E C Y P E

E H B T # T B

M J M O L E R

B U E B I M U

E N V E R B A

R E O R P E R

J A N U A R Y

FINALLY! - Here's a 7x10

Code:

Y        *        R        E        B        M        E        V        O        N

L        *        N        Y        A        M        A        R        C        H

U        U        *        A        U        G        U        S        T        A

J        A        N        U        A        R        Y        *        O        P

F        E        B        R        U        A        R        Y        B        R

R        E        B        M        E        C        E        D        E        I

S        E        P        T        E        M        B        E        R        L

EDIT - nice one Maple Leafs. You got me by one minute.

4 X 17, which is marginally better than 7 x 10:

Code:



F        E        B        R        U        A        R        Y        L        U        J        A        N        U        A        R        Y

                 L        I        R        P        A        U        G        U        S        T        H        C        R        A        M

D        E        C        E        M        B        E        R        N        R        E        B        O        T        C        O        A

S        E        P        T        E        M        B        E        R        E        B        M        E        V        O        N        Y