Joel Fagliano notes: Daniel Bodily, of Woodbury, Minn., is a robotics research engineer. His crosswords often include a visual element, as seen in the middle of the grid here. A self-described "left-brained person," he notes that crosswords are "the closest I'll come to being an artist myself ..read more

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Eli Cotham notes: Hi everyone, I'm proud to present my NY Times debut puzzle. I'm a Realtor in the Portland, OR metro and have been building puzzles (mostly bad ones) for a few years now. I built this grid without having any specific seed words in mind; I only knew I wanted four fun and fresh words for the long slots, so I'd go with the best ones that fit. I found GAS STATION SUSHI first and figured that it was basically a pass/fail term for editors, and if it failed, it would take the whole puzzle with it. So once I stopped worrying about that-- I've failed before, and I will again-- I seeded ..read more

NotepadThis puzzle contains several pre-filled squares. For a correct solution, tap into each and enter a blank rebus. More assistance can be found in today's Wordplay column: nytimes.com/column/wordplayBrandon Koppy notes: My original submission actually omitted the shaded squares—I was worried it would be too "hand-holdy" or something. But I think the presentation tweaks they added are pretty cool and do a good job of illustrating the theme. This was a fun one to stitch together, and I hope you enjoy solving it! For any constructors interested in this type of grid, I have a tutorial on my we ..read more

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Joel Fagliano notes: Mike Ellison, of Henderson, Nevada, works in business analytics. Prior to that, he majored in music education and served as a band director, hence the theme you see here. This puzzle has a rare double revealer, found at 42- and 52-Down, which cleverly sums up the wordplay. Jim Horne notes: The gray solfège notes descend through an octave from DO down to DO. Eight Across answers end with a note, also descending, so tuxed becomes tuxeDO, etc ..read more

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