Enigma 37 - Escape Room Encryption Machine

The machine can be used to encode your own secret messages!  Send and receive secret messages to anyone who has a machine. 

Hardwood construction with gears cut from ¼” thick wood. All letters and text are deeply laser engraved into the wood. Base is USA Hickory.  The gears turn on alloy steel pins.  Measures about 13" x 5" x 1.3"

The Blog "House of Little Tomato" incorporated the Enigma 37 in their Escape Room Party .

If you would like to purchase additional gears please visit this page .

© 2016 Creative Crafthouse  Made in  Hudson, FL, USA

A summary of how to use the machine is listed below.  I recommend you watch the video to make it clear.  It’s a very fast and easy process once you learn how to do it.

1.Define an initial gear order.  Each gear is labeled by A, B, or C. Set the gears on the pins in the order you select.

2. Define the initial Key, 3 characters long.   The Key defines the gear orientations.  Arrange each gear such the pointer on the board points to the key letter on the Gear.  If the Key was DOG for instance, the first gear would be set to D at the arrow.  The second gear to O at the arrow; and the third gear to G at the arrow.  The The key can be embedded in the message or for better security it can be communicated separately.

3. Write the english text that you wish to encode in the lines and boxes marked “Text” on the provided worksheet; or just on a piece of paper if you don’t have a worksheet.  Do not use spaces or punctuation.

4. The right side gear is the English Text wheel.  To begin encryption, find the 1st letter of your message and align it with the arrow next to this wheel.  Read the corresponding letter that appears at the top arrow of the gear 1, which is the left gear on the board.  Write this letter in the “Code” block of your worksheet right below the letter you just encoded.    Next set the English Test wheel to the second letter of your message.  Read the encoded letter on the 2nd (middle) gear.  Repeat this process of going from the left gear(1) to the center gear (2).

5. At any point along the way you can define a new wheel order or a new key.   This could be communicated separately or embedded within the message in a way you can devise on your own.  

6. Note you can use the same worksheet to decode an encrypted message when you know the wheel order and key.  Write the coded message in the code blocks.  Set the wheel order and key.  Now read from gears 1 and 2 in order and find the english text letter on the right hand gear.