Follow these instructions, and I will guess your age by chocolate:

	Step 1:  Pick the number of times a week that you like to eat chocolate (more than once but less than 10).
	Step 2:  Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)!
	Step 3:  Add 5 to the total.
	Step 4:  Multiply your total by 50 — I’ll wait while you get a calculator.
	Step 5:  If you have already had your birthday this year, add 1759.  If you haven’t, then add 1758.
	Step 6:  Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.
	Your result should be a three digit number. The first digit is your original number (i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).  The next two numbers are your age!

This is the only year (2009) that this trick will work, so spread it around!

How to Solve this Trick

This is a simple algebra math trick.  For test purposes, let’s assume you were born on January 1, 1970.  That would make your age 39 (as of today, July 9, 2009).  So, following the steps above:

1. Pick the number of times a week that you like to eat chocolate.  So let’s assign the variable “C” for chocolate:
   = C
    
2. Multiply this number by 2.  So that’s:
   = C x 2 
    
3. Add 5 to the total.
   = (C x 2) + 5 
    
4. Multiply your total by 50.
   = ((C x 2) + 5) x 50
   = (C x 2 x 50) + (5 x 50)
   = (C x 100) + 250
    
5. If you have already had your birthday this year (which we have, using our test birthday of January 1), add 1759.
   = ((C x 100) + 250) + 1759
   = (C x 100) + 2009 (which is the current year!)
    
6. Subtract the four year digit you were born.
   = (C x 100) + 2009 – 1970
   = (C x 100) + 39 (which is our test age!)
   = C39

The final result is a three digit number.  The first digit is your original number “C” (C x 100).  The next two numbers are your age (39).

So the trick is to take your original number and multiply it by 100 so that it’s the first digit in the result.  Next, it multiplies and adds some numbers that equal the current year.  So then if you subtract the year you were born, the result is the number of years you have been alive, i.e., your age.

SOLVED!

If you enjoyed this puzzle, be sure to check out the Regifting Robin Mind Trick.

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The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932.  It expanded to plastic toys in 1940.  In 1949, Lego began producing the now famous interlocking bricks, calling them “Automatic Binding Bricks.”  Today LEGOs have international appeal, with an extensive subculture that supports LEGO movies, games, competitions, and four LEGO-themed amusement parks.

Below are some amazing examples of how these simple plastic LEGO blocks can be assembled to produce working high-tech computer equipment.

LEGO Difference Engine

Considered one of the first computers in history, the “Difference Engine” was an automatic, mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions.  Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful sets of numbers.

In 1822, Charles Babbage first proposed the use of such a machine.  The machine used the decimal number system and was powered by cranking a handle.  The British government initially financed the project, but withdrew funding when Babbage repeatedly asked for more funds while showing little progress.  Babbage was never able to get his design working, but based on Babbage’s original plans, the London Science Museum constructed a working Difference Engine in 1991 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Babbage’s birth.

LEGO builder Andy Carol created a working Difference Engine in LEGOs, though his machine is “limited” to solving second- and third-order polynomials to three or four digits, which is still pretty amazing.
 

LEGO Bluetooth Printer

XFrame 3D Design used the popular Lego Mindstorms NXT kit to create a Bluetooth printer.  It uses typical LEGO colored bricks, pulleys and gears to create a fairly accurate printout.  Unlike conventional printers that remain fixed while moving paper through them, this LEGO printer rolls on wheels across the table to draw on paper that has been taped down.

You can see this printer in action:

LEGO Milk Scanner

This Milkscanner project is based on the idea that you can capture the silhouette of an object when it is surrounded by a high-contrast fluid, such as milk or ink.  When you lower the object into the fluid, the silhouette changes gradually as the fluid obstructs more of the object’s shape.  By capturing the object’s silhouette at different stages of immersion into the liquid, you can generate cross-sectional slices that can be stacked together and interpreted as 3D data.

The LEGOs hold a webcam that looks down on a plastic box that will hold the object to be scanned and then be filled with milk.  The first version was developed using C# and Microsoft Visual Studio Express, but the developer switched to CodeBlocks and C++, using OpenFrameworks as a base for the recording tool.  The software is open-source licensed under GPL and plays with MoviesAndBox 2.0.

LEGO Personal Computer

Some people love to build their own PCs, but that usually means buying a pre-built PC case.  But how about building the case yourself out of hundreds of colorful LEGOs?

Look here for detailed instructions on how to build “Winston’s Lego Computer.”  You will need a motherboard Mini-ITX, standard PC components, and a lot of LEGOs (apparently $380 worth of the colored bricks, according to the author).

But there’s more.  PC Magazine contacted professional LEGO sculptor Nathan Sawaya to build a LEGO PC for the cover of its magazine.  They liked the non-working model so much they decided to build a working version and give it away in a contest. 

So Sawaya and PC Magazine’s Executive Editor Jeremy Kaplan “spent countless hours installing the internal mechanics of the machine.  Using several different LEGO building techniques, we were able to mount the computer parts inside and actually make a working computer.”

Sawaya said the best part was the contest winner waited almost two weeks before putting it up on eBay.
 

LEGO iPhone

The aforementioned Nathan Sawaya also constructed the world’s first LEGO iPhone.  According to his website:

“It is just about actual size.  The service is spotty.  And before you ask, yes, it costs $399.”

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Go to Regiftable.com to play the game, then come back here for an explanation on how it’s done.  Though if you are a programmer, you should be able to easily figure it out for yourself.

The game asks you to select any two digit number (example 25).  Next, you are to subtract the both the first and second digits from your number (example: 25 – 2 – 5 = 18).  Then you are to select a gift from a grid of all possible answers.  In the final page, Regifting Robin correctly guesses your gift.  So how does this nifty trick work?

The equation can be represented as:  (10*x + y) – x – y = 9*x

Using our example, x = 2 and y = 5, so that’s (10*2 + 5) – 2 – 5 = 9*2 = 18.

In the gift grid, each 9*x box has the same gift, e.g., the boxes numbered 9, 18, 27, 36, etc. all are marked “Bath Salts.”

The selected gift is changed each time to make the trick seem more real.

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