Marte counts perler beads

Marte immediately writes ‘1,000’ on the board, and leaves the room.

This is initially presented as all she had done in her attempt. However, Olli quickly reveals that Marte had in fact returned to the lab before he’d officially stopped the clock, questioning whether she had given the correct answer.

After staring at the jar for a while, Marte convinces herself that there’s no way it actually contains 1,000 beads, so she pours out its contents onto the table and starts counting them, with Olli helping her keep track by writing down her totals on the chalkboard.

Her counting soon goes off the rails, however, as she begins losing beads to the floor, losing track of her counting, and losing patience with the process in general.

After finally putting what she believes to be 100 beads back into the jar, Marte starts clumping similarly-sized piles from the remaining beads together on the table, finally concluding that the jar really did contain 1,000 beads after all.

She erases all of the numbers Olli had written on the board – leaving only her original ‘1,000’ – and then tells Olli to stop the clock.

In the studio, Olli cannot resist pointing out that the task brief had stated that they were to write down how many beads were in the jar, but that at the point that Marte gave her final answer, the number of beads actually inside the jar was just 165, not 1,000, as she’d left most of them on the table and/or floor. This revelation causes the other four contestants to scoot over on their chairs, as far away from the irritated Marte as they can, and even Atle tells Olli that he is on his own in this battle.

Thankfully, Marte takes this revelation with a level head, and Olli’s life is spared. After time penalties (having ultimately written down the wrong answer for her case), Marte finishes the task in 9 hours, 23 minutes, and 20 seconds, and earns fourth place.

(Written by Jenny R and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by Jenny R and adjusted by David Fuller)