If you want to watch a video presentation I gave on this topic for the Sector67 monthly meeting, it’s available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKcOTcaCISQ
I went way overboard this year for Christmas and spent a LONG time building an experience for someone. The 7 year old that lives in the house REALLY wants to see Santa, and REALLY wants to have an elf. We have been consistent in our statements that owning a person is not ok, but it’s fallen on deaf ears. This small person also gets a scavenger hunt every year. This year I took charge and decided to kick it up a notch with an Elf Training Exercise. The idea is that Santa and the elves have had to deal with curious children for hundreds of years and use technology and magic to stay steps ahead of kids, and that she has been chosen to participate in Elf Training so that she could experience some of the things they use. Essentially it was a giant escape room/scavenger hunt. I didn’t tell Laura any of the details because I wanted her to participate as well. In fact, there were going to be some grandparents there, and I wanted them to participate too. I spent many weeks preparing for this day, and multiple late nights in the week leading up to it. On Christmas Eve she didn’t go to sleep until 1:15, so I had to wait until after that to finally install everything. When it was time for the show the next morning, there were some hitches but nothing that broke the fourth wall and we got through the whole thing successfully.
It started with a note at the top of the stairs telling her about the concept and asking her (and her team) to don their uniforms (the presents nearby contained matching pajamas for everybody).
Then they went to the first clue, which was at the fireplace. This is where the tablet was introduced. I had developed a web page that used html, javascript, and css to put together an experience. I used Fully Kiosk Browser, which was $10, to run the app. This gave me the full screen app that was locked down and stayed awake, plus let me have access to BLE beacons and the camera.
The next task was then to do 25 star jumps to get warmed up. She started to do them and noticed that the counter was counting down. She didn’t know how it was watching, but we all had to do it until the counter got to 0 and the app moved on. The magic behind all of this was a small device I’d built that was essentially a BLE beacon. Every time the tablet sensed this beacon advertising it would use the current state to know what to do with the beacon. My device merely had a button that applied power to the beacon. In most cases the admin beacon was used to move on to the next item, and sometimes it was a safety escape in case there was a problem with the puzzle and we needed to move on.
The next clue directed her to find the time on a stopped clock in the kitchen, and she had to read the time on the analog clock (something we’re working on), to get the time, which was the solution to a cryptex next to the tablet. Inside the cryptex was a folded piece of paper and the first of 12 clear acrylic puzzle pieces. The paper had a series of math problems, and when solved gave a solution that was entered into the tablet to move on. None of it was outside her capability, but it was perhaps too hard to push too early, especially after little sleep, and we had a tough time getting her to finish it. At one point she almost started crying and didn’t want to keep doing the hunt. She was able to rally, though, and I gave hints a little more liberally to keep things moving.
Another puzzle involved some more beacons. These were individual devices in five different snowflake-shaped enclosures. When held upright like ornaments, they would light up, and alternate between red, green, and blue. When on, it advertises its unique ID and the color it’s displaying. The tablet showed a colored snowflake and the goal was to get the real snowflakes to match what was being displayed on the screen. It took a while for them to get it, but they eventually did, and we zipped through the rest of the challenge.
In another challenge she discovered a box that was locked, but just set it aside and moved on to the next clue without trying to open the box. This was problematic as it contained a puzzle piece, but also because it contained a bag of Laura’s favorite coffee, and the grandparents were hankering for some coffee. Eventually we did get her to redirect to the box, and after pointing out that there were five holes, and that the snowflakes have a nub that fits into the hole, the five of us got together and inserted our snowflakes into the box, which released all five catches on the lid and allowed the lid to be removed. It worked surprisingly well for a first attempt. I hadn’t been able to test it thoroughly because I couldn’t put all five in at once, but the coffee bag ended up being a good force to push back the clips.
In another puzzle I had a series of sentences where each one was a letter to Santa that was missing one letter, and identifying which letter in each spelled out the clue to the next one. In another the first letter of each of a series of images was the clue to another puzzle.
In another one there was a thermal camera, and by scanning it around the room it was revealed that one of the canvas prints in the living room had four symbols illuminated that needed to be entered into the tablet. This one was one of my favorites. I had laser cut four symbols and wrapped nichrome wire around the edge, then powered it with a usb power bank that was hidden in the canvas. You had no idea looking at it that anything was amiss, but it showed clear as day on the thermal camera.
In another challenge there was a “marble” on top of a “table” on the tablet, and she had to walk up to the upstairs bathroom without tipping the marble. It used the accelerometer on the tablet to know if it had tipped too much, and I used the admin token to indicate when I wanted to move on from the challenge.
All of the challenges eventually opened up a lock I had designed and 3D printed that went over the top of the door handle that went to the basement. When that was opened it revealed a room full of laser beams made out of yarn with small bells hanging from them. They had to navigate the room without touching the yarn and ringing the bells. It was a hoot.
They found the first present on the mantle, and the key to unlocking it was in another puzzle in the bathroom, where there was a miniature 3D printed house, with a tube for a chimney. They had to pour water into the chimney to get the 3D printed Santa inside to float up so they could grab the string tied to the final puzzle piece and the key.
This gave her the last puzzle piece of 12, which when assembled spelled out H4PPY H0L1D4YS, and 4014 was the code for the lock on the final present, a giant pink trunk full of travel cubes and a holiday Barbie.
It took an hour and a half to get through it all, and it was extremely well received.