14.12345 / MAS.678910 — Material Acquisition

Profs. Eric Albert, Rose White, and Deborah A. Levinson (see solution)

All Enigmatologistsare fascinated by rare, arcane, obsolete, or just plain amusing objects. Plus, they like making people do goofy things. So that you can best appreciate the wide world around us, your group will participate in a scavenger hunt.

There are two separate categories in this hunt: photographs and objects. There are fifty things altogether; you must bring the Faculty thirty of them. At least ten of these must be photographs, and at least ten must be objects. Extra photographs and objects will be enjoyed, but they will not help your team in the slightest. For photographs or objects involving team members, the appropriate team members must be present when delivering the items. Please bring us all items at one time. Photographs (except for one) will be retained by the Faculty; objects (except for two) will be returned. Creativity is welcome (and, frankly, necessary).

Errata: It's not clear when, but at some point they announced they were accepting partial scavenger hunt solutions. They also said that they plan to keep the Pocky, in addition to the other two items indicated.

Photographs:

• a team member at least fifteen feet up a tree
• a team member dressed as Waldo from Where's Waldo?
• a team member at any T station on the Orange Line, with the station name visible
• a team member sitting in a booth at Mary Chung's restaurant in Central Square
• a team member at an MIT location where it is illegal (by MIT rules) for them to be
• a team member blowing a bubble-gum bubble that is at least two and a half inches in diameter
• a team member nude (this photograph will be returned if you wish)
• a team member juggling, with at least five items in the air
• a team member pushing a cash register button at The Coop
• a team member completely underneath a car
• a team member in midair, at least five feet up
• a team member at any of the locations represented by the photographs on page 10 or 11 of the Calendar section of the Boston Globe of October 30, 1997
• a team member lying on the Smoot bridge with a integral Smooth measurement visible
• a team member with an unauthorized animal in an MIT dorm room
• a team member soaking wet
• three or more team members playing Twister
• five team members wearing shirts or sweatshirts from five different colleges or universities
• an MIT computer cluster with at least ten women visible in it
• a uniformed pizza delivery professional handing a pizza to a team member; the pizza may still be in its box
• any part of any MIT building that clearly looks like the capital letter "P"
• any building with a street number of 666; the street number must be visible
• the entire length of the infinite corridor, devoid of people
• four vehicles, each with a visible license plate, each plate from a different state (or country), all in one photograph
• a photograph of a photograph of a photograph of something
• a team member on another team taking any of these photographs

Objects:

• a business card from someone whose name is peculiarly appropriate for their profession (for example, a veterinarian named Katz, or a lawyer named Harang)
• an origami model of any animal that begins with a "p"
• an important document on which a team member's name is misspelled
• an unusual Christmas ornament
• a physical object a team member was given before they were five years old
• a lit tungsten-filament light bulb of a color other than white or clear
• a box of an unusual flavor of pocky (per erratum, this will not be returned)
• a valid canceled check for more than $10,000 (if it's made out to the organizers it doesn't have to be canceled)
• a magazine or newspaper article about a team member that includes a picture of the member
• a movie ad showing at least three faces, with a name above each face, where each name correctly identifies the actor or actress below it
• at least six reasonable-sized servings of a homemade (dormmade counts) food dish that has at least four major ingredients and is both tasty and (relatively) healthy; bring the recipe also (the food and recipe will not be returned)
• a tenured MIT professor
• a letter written to a team member in which the letter's writer ends a romantic relationship with the team member
• an object purchased at least five years ago along with the dated receipt that explicitly identified the purchased object
• a set of objects with words on their outsides such that there exists a (sub)set of these words (only full words are allowed) where the subset contains each letter of the alphabet exactly once
• an object scented with patchouli
• a commercial sex toy
• a rhyming poem of at least ten lines that describes the process of getting a degree in Enigmatology (the poem will not be returned)
• a set of five blocks whose outside faces read "brits right -wing party"
• a Star Trek doll
• a bottle of beer from a country that no longer exists
• an object worth at least ten times more now than when it was new
• a set of at least 15 items from a team member's serious collection (for example: fortune cookie fortunes, or coins from previous Mystery HUnts); all collection items must be different
• a restaurant menu (not a take-out menu) that contains a typo
• a piece of knitting, crocheting, or needlepoint that displays the year "1998"