Chi-Craze, an adventure game!

Its the Chi-Craze time at IIT, Chicago. A friend called up and reminded of it this morning. She said, our last years win was the inspiring factor for her to take part this time round. Its been an year almost already that we, a group of 4 won the event cashing $500. I would rate it as the most wonderful part of my IIT Life apart from all the Academics and Part-times. So, I thought why not come up with a post and here it is.

Date: April 25th 2009.
Group: Me, Rakesh Attaluri, Karthik Karur, Mohan Garadi.
Fee: $10 with free T-Shirt and water bottles/snacks.
About the game: Its a scavenger-hunt adventure full of games that will take all over Chicago downtown.
Rules of the game: 4 member team with 10 teams going round Chicago downtown accomplishing tasks at 8 different locations using Public transport only (CTA - Busses and Trains) without using any kind of GPS or Phone assistance. For that reason, we were also allowed to bring a team to foul if we got proof of them speaking over phone or so. All set we were with these initial guidelines.

Before we set out off the campus, the prerequisite task was to get written 'April of Chicago is awesome' in any three of French, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin. We could go no where apart from the campus comprising of Mc. Cormik Tribune Campus Center (MTCC) and the Mc. Cormik Student Village (MSV). Luckily we found a Korean who got it written instantly. Finding the other two were quite a tough task. Then we entered the MSV knocking the doors of all the dorms and asking for assistance. Went through the corridors and the cellar to luckily find a sole soul studying and he knew Mandarin. 2 down. Then we walked across the corridor to find Mr. Fabio Buffa, a co-ordinator at ISO-IIT who got it written in French. Unfortunately, we did not take a picture of the manuscript. Time was a crucial factor in getting all these done and we were already feeling the nerve required in completing the event. Once this was done, we reported to the front desk and were given the actual list of 7 tasks. At this point, we stood at team 4.

Now, the major issue was planning. We had our Home Work done knowing the major places where the tasks could be held. Now that we had the list with us, we roughly made a guess of what the spots would be and decided on the direction we would be traveling encompassing various spots so as to complete all in one loop without re-entering them. Luckily that day, we started off right. We took the Green Line train at Bronzeville-IIT and a bus 12 from State/Roosevelt to Museum Campus. People cheered us on the way over the bus and trains wishing us luck. They were actually shocked by the prize amount and one of them did help us in guiding a Clue.

The first Clue was "non-land creatures on the verge of extinction." My guess was Shedd Aquarium and it was right too. Soon after arrival, we checked all possible locations around the Museum, around the Aquarium, etc. We knew they definitely would be hiding somewhere barring direct view. Luckily for us, Rakesh and Mohan found them sitting down in a corner. The task here was Pictionary. Excluding me, the rest three took part and we guessed the words. The words were - Twins, University and Complete. Complete was a little difficult to comprehend and we finally made it. We were the first team at this station.

Caught a bus at the right time from Roosevelt/Michigan to Madison/Michigan. Then, the Clue was "been there." It was easily decode-able as Big Bean but the issue was to locate the volunteers in the huge area. After searching for a while, Mohan was the one who found them hiding right in front of the Bean. The task here was to request any unknown person to capture a picture of all four of us jump and while in air with holding hands. A couple of attempts, we made it too. Again, we were first at this station.

A Blonde over bus 12 had helped us in figuring out the clue "720kHz Ted Turner's Channel" to be the WGN 720kHz radio channel across the Chicago river. This was an open space and was easy to locate the volunteers. There was already a team performing the tasks. There were two tasks to do. An oral drawing which Karthik and Rakesh took care of. Karthik was to dictate and Rakesh was supposed to draw with his back turned over Karthik. In the meanwhile, Mohan made a face paining over me, post which we were supposed to offer 10 Free Hugs each to the public. Finding obliging people was a little hard. We finally managed and it was one of its kind! ;)

Walked a good distance instead of wasting time for the bus and finally managed to catch bus 29 to Navy Pier. The next Clue in OUR route map was "eye of Chicago" which Rakesh easily figured out to be Navy Pier with the Giant Wheel, on the lines of London Eye. The task here was dumb-charades but the twist was to bring an unknown person from the mass and request them to perform for us. A couple helped us out in this. We were supposed to guess the movie. Mohan took charge and the person had no way to express that movie except to show numeral 6. Sixth Sense came the answer instantaneously and there we go to the next station. We were the first at this location too.

Back to transport and luckily, the Free Trolley that runs from Navy Pier to many other attractions across Chicago was waiting for us. Got down at Water Tower Place since our next Clue was "Water Tower Place: 4th Floor Nigerian Girl." This was straight forward but the task was a little funny. We were supposed to visit each participating store on the 4th floor excluding a few and learn whether the designer was a male or a female or consisted of both. We split into a group of two and completed the task well within prescribed time and set off from there. Station 5 done and conquered.

The rest two Clues were "Picasso sculpture" and "Chinese Zodiacs." Chinese Zodiacs were definitely at Chinatown close to the university. Hence, we were to complete Picasso sculpture. Mohan had a brief idea about the location. The previous week to this, we had visited the Magnificent Mile on Michigan Ave and knew the closest station to go for the train. It was the Chicago/State for the Red Line train. Got down at Jackson and walked all the way in look for Picasso sculpture. Had we got down at Monroe, the previous station or State/Lake the previous to Monroe, that would have helped us. We wasted time walking all the way back for four huge downtown blocks and asked people finally locating the Picasso sculpture on Dearborn/Washington. The task here was a little tough. With our Chess champ Karthik accompanying, we had hopes of clearing it. The task was Chinese Draft Board Game. The volunteer did give us an introduction to the game and Karthik had a good grasp of it to play and win for us. We made it at station 6.

The only station pending was Chinese Zodiacs and we knew it to be somewhere in Chinatown. On the way to catch Red Line, we remembered of the bonus tasks. Two tasks would earn us 15 minutes each. The first one was "a single picture having Black, White, Brown, Blue, Red, Green, Orange, Purple, Yellow colors in it." This was easy, it was the Train Map of the CTA and we had a picture taken on the Green Line train at the start of our Adventure itself. The second task was to get "Dunkin Doughnuts and Garrett's Popcorn." Mohan knew the location of Garrett's popcorn store. We walked back to Jackson. Two of us took to Dunkin and other two to Garrett's. Then we took the Red Line train from Jackson to Chinatown.

Entering Chinatown, we were totally dumbstruck to find no single clue as we had not explored the area in particular. Then, the other concept in the game "witty" came to help. Karthik found a guy from a different team running across the street. Guessing that they would know, we followed to get to the right place. Huh! Kind of relief that we managed to figure out all the stations. The task here was a little tricky. We were to solve Puzzles. 5 in 7 minutes. Here again, we split it in groups of two. Rakesh and Mohan solved two. Karthik and me solved three. The volunteer also gave us a second attempt to figure out the correct answer to a wrong one as we were well within 7 minutes. It was our day, since the team we followed were struggling to solve and we completed the task to get back to Red Line train at Chinatown to Sox-35th. There was no satisfaction unless we presented the sample dollar notes given at each station upon completion of the task to the volunteer at the final destination.

We ran from the station to Perlstein Hall but to see a team already present. We lost all hopes of winning this competition but to our surprise, the team had missed out on a clue "Big Bean," and we were the first team to have returned with completing all clues/tasks successfully. The result was not out as they had to wait for all the teams to get back. We were asked to report back later in the day for the presentation.

At the presentation, it was announced as our team being the first, accomplishing the task in 3 hrs 55 mins with adding the bonus 30 minutes beating the rest from a huge margin (more than an hour). Visa Gift Cards for $500 was gifted by the ISO Student President.

I must say, this was the most relishing moment I got. We had put in hard work and done our HW in achieving this feat. It also shows, hard work always pays off and in this case paid off in a very h/wealthy way. :P

I should thank all my team and especially Mohan who managed to literally run along with us anywhere and everywhere with such a body mass. This came as a very good example for team effort which stays in memory for long.

The pics at various locations of Chi-Craze can be found in my Picasa Album.