Code Breaker Badge - Ciphers and Code Wheel

 I am making quick progress with my code breaker badge and am really enjoying it!

I made a code wheel as one of the clauses, which was actually trickier than I first thought but only because I had to split my circles in to 26 segments and my logical maths brain was just not working today but once I figured out how to split the circles up evenly I think it went really well, oh apart from forgetting W in the alphabet but minor thing...  I wanted to make it all colourful so dug the colouring pencils out and voila:

Simple code breaking tool right there - might teach my son how to use it over the summer and code from simple words for him to decipher (he is only 5!)

Another clause that I have completed for the badge is researching ciphers.  I was already familiar with simple classic substitution ciphers and book ciphers but the others were all new to me and I really enjoyed learning about all the different types of ciphering and how they are used.  Some I definitely found hard to get my head around, especially homophonic ciphers and ADFGVX ciphers, they were really hard to understand at first but I watched some videos about them that talked through the methods in more simple terms that a lot of the text I found and these really helped me to understand how they work.  They are not ciphers I would use in a hurry though as even though I can understand how they work they still seem way too complicated!  

Vigenere and PlayFair cipher methods were interesting and relatively straight forward to understand despite them being something I'd never heard of before and think these would be fun ciphers to work with, if ever the need arose, which in my line of work and every day life I don't think they will but handy knowledge to have as you do never know!  

I think as a bookworm the cipher I most like is the book cipher and I love Sherlock Holmes stories where he has had to figure out the book for the key to the ciphered text, I love a good mystery and books so the two combined and I'm hooked.

I am really looking forward to doing the final two clauses for this badge, the escape rooms (I have completed one already) and the treasure hunt which I am doing with my son over the summer holidays. I will soon have this badge under my belt and it has been really enjoyable to do.

I am so glad I have found this club as it is giving me things to focus on, learn and get me back to being me after a tough start to the year and I cannot wait to work on and achieve more badges 😀 Thanks Rebels!