Vincent Cheung

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Thursday, July 13, 2006

Good Hunting

We had the "MANDATORY" scavenger hunt today for the Google interns that started in April and May. It was A LOT of fun! I had low expectations going in, but it was a blast!

The teams were semi-randomized and we had to run (literally) around San Francisco solving puzzles. Solving puzzles and going to locations led to more puzzles. The whole thing lasted just over 3 hours I think.

I was very impressed with how well organized the event was run (handled by Shinteki), especially the way we submitted answers (very slick), and the quality of puzzles that we were given. I expected us to just be like given a crappy piece of paper with dumb questions, but these puzzles were actually very cool and fun (yes, I consider puzzles to be cool and fun, well, at least some puzzles) while also being very thought provoking. One of the coolest was the one with the thing with the things on it and you had to do the thing with the thing to see the thing and then write down the thing on the thing to get the location of the next thing and do the thing at that thing with the thing. It was thingin' thingtastic!!!

I'm not allowed to go into the details, though I really want to, because the rest of the interns will be doing the same thing (same puzzles) in a couple weeks.

We had a good contribution from all of our 8 members. While I helped to solve puzzles like everyone else, I think my role of runner, navigator, and slave driver might have been even more significant. I was constantly telling people to run and walk faster and it totally paid off in the end! The strategy in distributing work and working smartly was also very important for our team.

In the end, we got 72 points (out of a possible 100) and came in second behind the first placed team with 74 points, with the average being like 50. If only we had done that thing at the beginning where we had to do that thing at the thing with the thing and also realized the thing for that thing, or did this other thing, we would have won, but at least for me, it didn't matter. I had a lot of fun and would have been happy not winning anything, but hey, the satisfaction of beating like a dozen other teams (to a pulp) was very satisfying :).

We each got a pack of Shinteki branded cards and a Google t-shirt. We missed out on the frisbees awarded to the top team.

1 Comment:

JL said...

I really like the puzzle with the stuff...and the thing... and you had to do the stuff...

yeah.. that was cool.

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