The elk puzzles

[ddevans96]

3, 8, 1, 7, 4, 6, 2, 5

[theelkspeaks]

3, 8, 1, 7, 4, 6, 2, 5

This is correct!

[Linkcat]

Read before as after rip.

Even double checked all the clues before and after posting.

[theelkspeaks]

The third puzzle will be exactly 24 hours after the second.  Good luck to all! (See the OP for the countdown)

[ddevans96]

Spoiler for May 21 - showing of work:

First 7 lines are just the given statements. > means they're directly next to each other, and >> means they may or may not be. After that I condensed what we knew about 4 and 6, which were present twice, into one line - 4 > 6 >> 2 >> 5 Since 6 was stated to be outside the top 3, and 4 could not be third because then it could not be the lowest lane of the top 3 - the sum would be a minimum of 15 whereas it was stated to be 12 - so that meant the whole group was outside the top 3. That means that of the remaining lanes - 3, 8, 1, 7 - three were the podium. The only group of those numbers that adds up to 12 is 3/8/1, of which 1 is the lowest, so 1 is third. We knew 3 was above 8 and 1 was directly above 7, so that confirms the rest of the placements.

[Linkcat]

My pen is apparently out of ink, so I noted associations on Notepad, somehow skipping over clue 4. I then ran through possibilities for the top 3 and wrote the rest down in order, except I switched 6 and 4. I probably would have solved it the way dd did If I had read clue 4 the first time through.

[theelkspeaks]

(1 point) Find the next number in the sequence: 3, 4, 7, 16, 43, ...

[Linkcat]

124

[theelkspeaks]

124

Correct!

Spoiler for Hidden:

This was a recursive sequence with each term being 3*R-5, with R being the previous term.

[kaempfer13]

gotta say that I was stumped even though these are usually easy to me. It alternating between prime and squarenumbers (with the solution being the first exception) brought me completely offtrack and its growth seemed unsteady though of course increasing. Not that I would ever see these before someone answers them.

[CleanOnion]

Putting answers in spoilers should be a rule for these

[Linkcat]

 I simply took the differences between the terms and saw that it multiplied by 3 each time. So the nth term in the series is equal to the previous term plus 3^n-2.

I don't spoil my answers because time is critical. I would have edited the spoiler in before the edit mark would show, but I was on my phone at work and didn't have time.