University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt Returns

mresolver writes "We've discussed it in previous years, and now the world's largest scavenger hunt at the University of Chicago has returned. The event may be best known for the working breeder reactor students built for the 1999 hunt. This year, some of the 330 list items (PDF) include 3-D (and 4-D) Twister, a hand-built Theremin, a recreation of the Moon landing, the world's largest Newton's Cradle, and hyperbolic crocheting."

Comments

a recreation of the Moon landing

[morgan_greywolf]

a recreation of the Moon landing

We're gonna need a whole lot of Mentos and Diet Coke for that one!

Re: a recreation of the Moon landing

[ciroknight]

Oddly enough, #134:

"Screw the salute--Diet Coke and Mentos jetpack!"

Killing two birds with one stone.

Re: a recreation of the Moon landing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. To crochet a hyperbolic plane, just double one stich in every n stitches (the smaller n, the more negative the curvature). It's one of the easiest things to crochet at all. There was actually an article in the Mathematical Intelligencer a while back about it, where the intended audience was people with no crocheting experience at all.

Klein bottles and projective planes are much more interesting to crochet, and still very much possible. It's even possible to crochet arbitrary Seifert surfaces fairly easily.

i knew it

[mastershake_phd]

a recreation of the Moon landing

The moon landing was staged at the university of Chicago!

Re:PDF sucks

[EvanED]

The first item on the list is the list itself.

You don't want them to make it too easy to get, do you?

Re:PDF sucks

[ackthpt]

What is up with PDF documents? (In this case, the list of items.) Why can't people just use normal hypertext? It makes it harder for people like me to view.

Hypertext doesn't print friendly from your browser.

Re:PDF sucks

[RingDev]

Well there's your problem! What the heck are you doing trying to print from MY browser?

-Rick

Re:Not nowadays...

[eln]

Ironically, the reactor they built for that scavenger hunt is now powering 75% of North Korea.

A few more highlights and comments:

[Anonymous Coward]

17. The Marx brothers' mirror sketch did not involve a mirror -- why should these?

27. A Turing machine. Is it OK if it's just equivalent to one?

45. Sounds like fun. How much money?

51. Tumbleweed. Believe it or not, they actually do have these in Chicago.

72. Angel Falls, MN?

206. Find Waldo in the Loop. Now, are you supposed to abduct him and take him back to show you found him?

240. Carhenge. I'm sure the photos will look great, but I'm keeping my distance.

304. "The Anarchist's Cookbook, complete with the Anarchist's Crock-pot."

Re:A few more highlights and comments:

[Tom]

While I found most of the comments here funny, this one frightens me.

Because I live in Germany.
Because as my grandparents told me, the Germans ca. 1936-39 spoke jokingly about the GESTAPO.

Road trip rules

[0100010001010011]

"May not have received no moving violations or convictions or court-ordered supervision."

So does that mean you have to have a moving violation to drive?

Maybe my English parser is broken on Friday.

Re:PDF sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

...because Scavhunt often has extensive typographic needs. Consider the 2006 list--upside-down text, non-roman scripts, fractions and greek letters aplenty. TeX is clearly the tool of choice.

Re:Harder to find

[gurps_npc]

I don't think they exist. >

Hand Built Theremin - Is there any other kind?

[Maximum Prophet]

a hand-built Theremin

Theremins are sufficiently rare that I sure any one they did find would be "hand built". I built one as a kit many years ago, but no longer have it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin

Not again

[cloudkiller]

252. While at Carhenge, drive the earth into the sun! [1,000,000,000 points; 2 points for effort]

Someone better get homeland security on the phone.

Impossible task

[The Real Toad King]

81. Genji 2 has shown us that the Oriental Institute lacks an exhibit on one of the famous battles that actually took place in Ancient Japan. Fix that. [29 points]

The Giant Enemy Crab will be tough to do, but it'll still be possible. But how can they show the real-time weapon change?

Re:PDF sucks

[J0nne]

Ever heard of print stylesheets?

Re:PDF sucks

[mchinand]

The document properties say it was created with dvips and ghostscript. Plus, it sure looks like Computer Modern font to me.

Info on the reactor

[Bromskloss]

It was a bit tricky to find, many pages talking about it were gone, but here it is.

Re:Info on the reactor

[mikael]

I particularly like the comment:

" Although some judges and fellow Mathews teammates were concerned over the safety of the reactor, Kasper
said that he and Neill took serious precautions during its construction. "It was all very well-controlled. We
packed the materials..., built a shed, and assembled it there... We've stopped the reaction. We only detected
about several thousand atoms of Uranium, so it's not like the source is radioactive by any means anymore."

"The Hunt" Documentary

[Phat_Tony]

There was a documentary made of the U of C scavenger hunt a few years ago. You can buy it here. Or request that Netflix or your local library get a copy, so you can check it out.

* disclaimer- I know the people who made this film. I still liked it.

Rubbery

[youthoftoday]

As the PDF was downloading I was saying to myself 'Please be LaTeX, please be LaTeX'.
For some reason the fact that they did restores my faith in humanity.

The best on the list:

[slimjim8094]

Number 87:

Schroedinger's dick in a box [0 or 1 points. Maybe both if you don't open the box]

Seriously though, its nice to see that universities are still academic, but also just plain fun. Although it's pretty sad that we all get both parts of that joke...

Hyperbolic Crocheting

[sclaughl]

Boy that brings back some memories. When I was in college, my crotch was the subject of much hyperbole. Oh crocheting... never mind.

Re:Hand Built Theremin - Is there any other kind?

[illuminatedwax]

The point of the U of C Scavenger Hunt is not to go find things and bring them back. That would be exceedingly boring. The important thing for each item is that the solution be interesting. That means that would be great if you bring back a vintage theremin from 1960, or if you built one yourself. Even better would be to bring in a real theremin being helf by Brian Wilson. The main point of the Hunt is creativity. U of C is not MIT.