Sorta — a free daily trivia game and ordering puzzle
Put the world in order… sorta.
Three quiet rounds, five things each, and one hidden way to arrange them. Trust your instinct and see how close your order comes to the truth.
Sorta Game puzzle #74 · September 22, 2026
Three rounds of five things, each with a hidden scale to sort them by — then one last guess at the theme tying all three together. Here’s what this puzzle asks.
Round 1
Order these spatial-location and alignment methods from largest to smallest typical margin of error (least to most precise).
- Traditional open-ocean Polynesian wayfinding across the Pacific
- A civil engineering RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) ground surveyor rover
- A standard civilian smartphone acquiring an unassisted satellite fix
- An extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photolithography wafer stage inside a chip foundry
- A brass maritime sextant sighting celestial bodies at sea
Round 2
Order these wireless tracking and spatial-detection devices from shortest to longest maximum operating range.
- An ultra-wideband (UWB) precision radio tag locating misplaced household keys
- A coastal Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder tracking merchant ships
- A Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip embedded in a contactless debit card
- A geostationary satellite transponder relaying emergency beacon distress coordinates
- NASA's Goldstone antenna array tracking the robotic Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter
Round 3
Order these historical pathfinding and orientation breakthroughs from earliest to most recent.
- John Harrison's marine chronometer H4 completing its transoceanic sea trial to Jamaica
- Elmer Sperry's gyrocompass successfully operating aboard the battleship USS Delaware
- The United States executive order disabling 'Selective Availability' on GPS satellite signals
- The earliest recorded maritime use of a magnetized needle compass in Song Dynasty China
- The orbital launch of Transit 1B, the world's first operational satellite-based transit network