As some members of the Class of 2012 were searching for their Senior Spooning targets, other Seniors were involved in a separate search of their own. One hundred and thirty Seniors are currently participating in a “Senior Scavenger Hunt” organized by Max Block ’12, Ricky Goldstein ’12 and Andrew Schlager ’12. The game has been going on for the past four weeks, according to Block. Participants were organized into 26 teams of five, and each team received a paper card. Each week, the organizers e-mailed a new clue to the participants that leads to a hole punch hidden on campus that punches a specially-shaped hole. Teams are required to present their punched card to prove that they have solved that week’s clue. Teams cannot advance to the next round without solving the previous week’s clue, and the first team to finish each week is awarded a head start on the next puzzle. “It’s pretty much anything goes. There has been some spying going on and there are some rivalries building, but it’s been a fun competition,” said Leo Cohen ’12, whose team was the first to find the first two clues. The winning team will receive prizes, including tickets to the Theater 520 production. “Mainly with this type of [game], the real prize is bragging rights and being able to say that your team won the scavenger hunt, or [that] you found a clue that the other teams didn’t. We hope that that’s more rewarding than just getting a prize,” Goldstein said. Clues include rhyming poems and sequences of numbers and letters. Teams are currently stuck on the third clue, which was released last week. According to Block, if no team manages to solve the third clue, there will not be a winner. “We haven’t really thought about [altering the third clue] that much because the idea that no one would solve it was kind of beyond us, but it’s not looking too good. We made it difficult, but it’s definitely solvable and the hints are there in the clue. Hopefully, it’s a matter of time before someone gets it,” said Goldstein. Part of the first clue read, “Now this time the hole punch can move around, / (Always a few feet above the ground) / And You may hear Eins zwei drei vier / Or pass Longfellow’s fellow – / While you’re passing along that way, Consider the information on display: / D=1 / 11.25 – 4.4 / 12.16 – 5.5 / 1.083 – 5.2.” Cohen said, “My team has really been into it. We got [the first clue] right away, but [the clues] seem to be getting more complicated. The second one took a bit longer. The most recent clue is tough, and we’ve been working long and hard on it but to no avail.” Cohen said that the increasing difficulty of the clues has caused many Seniors to lose interest in the game. “[On] the last two [clues] I gave up. It was too much thinking for Senior Spring,” said Asia Bradlee ’12. “The second clue was all math-based and it was really hard equations so we didn’t totally get it. Max Block tried to explain it to us, and it was a really complicated math equation that we didn’t know how to do.” Block and Goldstein conceived the idea for a class-wide scavenger hunt during Winter Term and asked Schlager to join them in organizing the game. Block said, “We thought that [Schlager’s] showmanship might be valuable in the endeavor.” The three then approached Capano with their idea. Capano said that the Student Activities Office helped to send e-mails and facilitate communication between the organizers and the participants, but Block, Goldstein and Schlager organized most of the game themselves. Block said, “I was pretty impressed with the turnout. People were really enthusiastic about the clues.” Block, Goldstein and Schlager hope that the scavenger hunt will continue as a new tradition for Seniors. “I think people have enjoyed it, and I think it’s definitely something that people have gotten into, especially now with spooning no longer around,” said Goldstein. “I think [the scavenger hunt] definitely can’t fill the void of spooning… but it’s another fun activity for Seniors to do in Senior Spring,” Goldstein continued.
