Answer: Binary Secret #195

The secret message is:

PIANO

The decoded message: PIANO
Every row decoded.

Row by row

RowBulbsAdd the ‘on’ numbersCharacter
10101000064 + 16 = 80P
20100100164 + 8 + 1 = 73I
30100000164 + 1 = 65A
40100111064 + 8 + 4 + 2 = 78N
50100111164 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 79O

Crack it with Python

Python can do the adding for you. int(code, 2) reads a string of 1s and 0s as a binary number. Then chr() turns the number into its character.

secret = [
    "01010000",
    "01001001",
    "01000001",
    "01001110",
    "01001111",
]
message = ""
for code in secret:
    number = int(code, 2)
    message = message + chr(number)
print(message)

When you run it, it prints:

PIANO

<strong>Beep says:</strong> Want to write your own secret message? Turn it around: ord() turns a character into its number, and format(number, “08b”) writes the number as 8 binary digits. Beep boop!